Bloodrush
by Mister Vix
Summary: (COMPLETE)(AU) The red Maverick known to all as Bloodrush has been haunting the world since the Hunters can remember. But when X finally encounters this icey, odd phantom, things are getting a bit strange. (Very bloody!)
1. Chapter 1: Steel Frost

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 1:  
  
Steel Frost  
  
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Disclaimer: I do not own Megaman-X. I do, however, own my original characters I made up.  
  
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Author's Notes: In case you didn't see the summary outside, this story is AU (Alternate Universe) which means it won't be very much like the game plot. And a cookie goes to whoever recognizes what book Dosadai's name is referencing!  
  
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Flames giggled their way amongst the trees, cheerily eating up the undergrowth. X coughed in the thickening smoke, clamping a hand over his mouth and nose in an attempt to filter the air somewhat. This was the third fire started--quite odd, considering the reputation for the offending Maverick. Bloodrush loved ice; flame just wasn't his typical style.   
  
The blue-clad Hunter stared through the smoke, his emerald eyes not quite sharp enough to define everything that lay some distance away. A quick streak of motion in the corner of his eye brought his gaze snapping towards it, and he stood stock-still, buster held up and ready, waiting. Bloodrush was out there somewhere. He might even be running circles around the Hunter who was after him.  
  
X knew he was no real match for Bloodrush. The crimson-armored Maverick was too tough for anyone, only a tiny portion of a level under Sigma. Many suspected that he was better than Sigma, and simply didn't care enough about ruling to take his place. There had originally been a whole squad after the vicious reploid, but Bloodrush was a master at causing chaos--X no longer had any idea where the rest of the group might be, and all that came through the transmission was loud static. Bloodrush had the signal blocked somehow.  
  
"Come out and fight, then!" X shouted, his voice hoarse from the smoke. He gritted his teeth, trying to keep himself from shuddering.  
  
"But...it's just so much fun...to watch you shake in your boots...silly Hunter..." purred a silky voice from overhead. X jerked his buster upwards and fired off a shot, but the shadow that leaped from the tree was far too fast for him to hit. It dashed swiftly about in the smoke, finally coming into view. X gulped.  
  
Bloodrush grinned, a fierce grin, his steel-colored eyes glittering redly as they reflected the firelight. His blood-colored armor had taken on an orange tinge from the flames, and his long, streaming blonde hair was slightly unkempt, marked with soot and dirt and leaves, the only sign that he had even been in a burning forest at all. He slowly lifted the beam saber in his hand, pointing it straight X, and it flared brighter, for a moment overriding the pervading red with its neon-green glow. "You wanted to fight me, Hunter?"   
  
X took an involuntary step backwards. He was trapped. He could probably make it through the flames behind him, but Bloodrush was too fast for him to run away--he would be caught in a matter of seconds. And if he tried to fight, there was little chance that Bloodrush would hesitate to cut him down. There were no other alternatives. His expression locked into a grim resignition, and his buster hummed slightly as it began charging up, sparks and flecks of the energy it used as a weapon flying off into the air.  
  
"You really are a silly Hunter," Bloodrush chuckled, and dashed forward, a crimson streak against the crimson forest. His saber came down once, twice, thrice, a bolt of green lightning trailing thin sprays of blood, and then he jumped back, leaving X staggering and clutching at the three long gashes in his shoulder, vivid red lines clashing against his blue armor.  
  
"Oh, my, can't you put up more of a fight? You're so slow! And I had heard good things about you, Blue Hunter!" the crimson Maverick said, his silky voice mocking. "Don't tell me you can be beat by such a prettyboy?" He punctuated his remark by swinging his head, sending his blonde hair cascading messily down his shoulder, and grinned again.  
  
X glared, pulled up his buster, and fired off a shot. Bloodrush hopped to one side, but not fast enough to avoid taking a glancing blow--he stumbled, tripping over a smouldering branch, and just barely caught himself, only to be sent sprawling by a second shot. He looked up, and his steely eyes were icy. "Now that's much more like it."  
  
X was thrown back by a shot from Bloodrush's buster, and for a moment, the air was lit with a blue shock as he crashed into a tree, a quick spray of electricity marking the direct hit. The Hunter retaliated with three quick shots, but all three were ricocheted off of Bloodrush's saber. Then the Maverick rushed forward, ash flying up behind him like an ominous deathcloud, and he thrust straight forward with his saber--but X jumped up, and landed full ontop of the Maverick, crushing him into the ground. Bloodrush picked himself up, dragging the smaller X off of him and pitching him across the scorched clearing. The Blue Hunter rolled himself onto his feet and fired off a half-charged shot, which sent Bloodrush reeling backwards for the moment X needed to lunge forward, slugging the red Maverick across the face. The fight degenerated into a brawl, as Bloodrush kicked the Hunter in the side and X punched him again. A sudden shot from a buster caught X full in the side of the head, and he lay limp where he was thrown. Bloodrush looked up and glared murderously at the sniper, a rather nondescript Maverick with plain navy armor and short-cropped black hair.  
  
"You got in the way!" the red Maverick snarled, and hurled his saber like a javelin, skewering the Maverick. Within a moment, the reploid exploded into a fiery mass of chunks of metal, adding more flames to the already-scorched wood. Bloodrush growled in frustration, walking over and retrieving his saber. Then he walked slowly over to X, staring down at the unconscious Hunter. Unceremoniously, he kicked him in the side. "Wake up, silly Hunter," he said, laughing again, his steel eyes frigid. X groaned and rolled to one side, holding his head in one hand as he used the other to push him up off the ground. Everything spun about in a massive blur, swimming before his eyes, and when he looked up, Bloodrush resembled nothing so more as a demon out of some fiery abyss, with his blonde hair a tangled mess about his shoulders and the flames of the dead Maverick sniper at his back. He pointed his saber at X, smiling slightly.  
  
"You could be good, kid," he said, silky voice once again seeming to purr. "I think you'll be a good fight. But all Hunters are silly, so don't stick with them. They'll just get in your way in the end--and I don't intend to let anything stay in either of our path's. I haven't had any good fights for a long while. So none of that Hunter nonsense. My name is Zero. Remember it." And with that, he was gone, dashing away into the burning forest.   
  
X, dazed and disoriented, let himself fall back to the ground, as in his aching head he mulled over the Maverick's words. So Bloodrush's true name was Zero.  
  
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Dosadai flipped through the pages of the damage report, hardly even reading the page. He already knew all the words. Six Hunters dead, four acres of forest burnt to the ground, one civillian dead. The only survivor of the squad sent out to hunt down Bloodrush had been X, and he had been so bashed up he couldn't even see straight. Dosadai sighed.  
  
"Is all I'm good for filing paperwork?" he asked the ceiling. Another text-toting reploid across the hall laughed, and Dosadai's eye twitched. It was true that he wasn't good for much else--he was never intended to be a combat unit. With a lean, wiry frame and no built-in weaponry, he was fast but nearly incapable of harming opponents which possessed any sort of armor. His eyes were a burnished, orangey copper in color, and his short-cropped hair was indigo. However, his mind worked at lightning speed, and he remembered nearly everything he had ever heard or seen.   
  
At that moment, X leaned in the doorway, glancing around the room.   
  
"Hey, Dosa, I need some info on somethin'," the blue Hunter said, spotting the paper-laden reploid. X was mostly patched up from his last mission, though there was still a scorch mark up one side of his face, and his emerald eyes held a hazy, far-off look of preoccupation.  
  
"Ah, sure, X, watcha need?" Dosadai asked, shuffling around the mess on his desk and accidentally unbalancing a tower of reports, sending the entire lot skittering across the carpeted floor. "Well, crap."  
  
"Every scrap you've got on Bloodrush. Where he came from, who built him, how long he's been around, everything. Give it to me as soon as you've got it all collected up." X walked away, nearly running into a fully-armored reploid that was racing down the hall in a hurry, every step clanking loudly and resounding around the halls. Dosadai sputtered in frustration, kicking his desk and knocking it over, spilling white-out all over the pale carpets. After staring for a few moments at the mess he had just made, he stomped out of the room irritably.  
  
"I'm sick of being a paperweight."  
  
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He sauntered into the middle of the town without a care in the world, watching with amusement as the humans and civillian reploids scattered like disturbed insects. Zero, known to all the populous as Bloodrush, aimed his buster at a random building and fired, smirking as a smoking crater was blown in its side. Within moments, the building, shuddering violently, began to sway, toppling as though in slow motion onto the street. Then, flaring his beam saber to life, he began hunting down anything that moved.  
  
"Stop it, Maverick!" cried a familiar voice. Zero looked over his shoulder and grinned.   
  
"Hello, X!" he said cheerfully, leaping upwards and landing just in front of the Blue Hunter. "I thought you'd show up." Then the Maverick saw the burn marks still on X's face, and frowned. "Ooooooh, you're not all fixed up yet, are you? Poor, poor Hunter," he chuckled. "Go home and get a band-aid, and come back when you're top shape, kid." Then, the Red Maverick was gone in a flash of red-and-yellow that twisted upwards and vanished as Zero teleported away.  
  
"DANGIT!" growled X, stomping the ground and staring at the destruction in the streets. At least Bloodrush had only knocked over one building...  
  
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"X!" Dosadai said, banging his fist on the door to the Hunter's private quarters. The fact that it was almost four in the morning didn't bother him in the least--in fact, he took a certain pleasure in being able to wake someone ELSE up at an unreasonable hour for a change. There was a growl from behind the door, and the Hunter, his dark hair a total dissarray, slid the door open.  
  
"What. The heck. Do you want," he snarled, his hands gripping the doorframe as though to prevent himself from going for the other reploid's throat.  
  
"You told me to bring you the info as soon as I got it all together," Dosadai replied, a tiny smirk on his face. But X, unfortunately, seemed to forget entirely that it was before sunrise, eagerly snatching the papers from the taller reploid's hands and, without so much as a "thank you," slammed the door shut.  
  
"I will not be treated this way!" Dosadai shrieked, jumping up and down in rage before storming off down the hall.  
  
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X flipped frantically through the pages of the document, skimming the various data. Most of it was records of known and suspected crimes commited by the Red Maverick. Finally he stopped on a sloppy, hand-copied page written in neon-orange gel ink. At first, he thought it must be a letter, placed in the stack by accident, but as he studied it, became quite clear that it was, indeed, information on Bloodrush.   
  
"Bloodrush will require much more investigation than I alone can commit," was scrawled across the page. "But I've found out a few things myself. For one thing, he actually does have a name he calls himself, unlike was previously thought. This name is 'Zero.'"  
  
X paused for a moment, considering. If this person, whoever it was that wrote this, had discovered Bloodrush's other name, why wasn't it documented or known anywhere else? He skimmed farther through th epaper, but found nothing of interest, until he spotted the signature at the bottom. "Dosadai." X blinked. Dosadai, that irritable, skinny little deskworker, had gone out and followed Bloodrush all over creation, taking notes? That was difficult for X, who was used to seeing the wirey reploid sitting at a desk or carting documents around, to picture. He was a little ashamed to realize that he had never considered Dosadai much of an action sort of person. But now he thought about it, the paperwork-laden fellow certainly had an aggressive enough attitude.  
  
He was drawn from his musings by another knock at the door. A quick glance at the clock told him it was now 4:30 a.m., making him wonder who the heck could possibly be at the door this time. Sliding it open, he came face to face with a small fist that, while the blow lacked significant force, was sufficient to knock him backwards on to the floor, thought more from surprise than anything else.  
  
"Dosdai! You little jerk! I'll kill you!" X roared, bounding to his feet to face the thin reploid.  
  
"No, you won't. If you're smart, you'll apologize for slamming your door in my face!" Dosadai shrieked back, his orangish eyes slightly wild. Clutched in his shaking hand was a small buster. "I am sick and tired of being a paperweight! I won't have it! I JUST WON'T HAVE IT!!" X backed away, as Dosadai had clearly snapped.  
  
"Calm down, Dosadai. Just calm down, and I promise we can work something out. Okay?" he said, his eyes trained on the small buster. While light and miniscule in size, they coudl pack a wallop, especially from as close to it as he was. He discarded the idea of calling for help; it would probably just set Dosadai off.  
  
"I don't want your promises," Dosadai replied, his voice becoming unnaturally calm. Then came a voice from behind him, cold and commanding.  
  
"Put the buster down, Dosadai. Just drop it," General Roga commanded softly. The skinny reploid looked back at the towering behemoth of a reploid. Roga's hair was flame-red and slightly frazzled-looking, and his hazel-yellow eyes were hard and flat. With a choked sort of noise, almost like a sob, Dosadai let the buster clatter to the floor, soon following it, folding himself over his knees and burying his face in his hands. Roga picked up the buster and tucked it into his belt, flipping on the safety lock, then lifted Dosadai, carrying the lightweight, crying deskworker easily.  
  
"I trust you intend to honor my promise?" X said. He felt terribly sorry for the deskworker; it was easily overlooked, especially by one as busy as he, but the poor fellow was eternally getting picked on because he couldn't be an efficient fighter. Roga, however, grunted.  
  
"I think not. Attempted armed assault and unauthorized access of weapons storage. Dosa's lucky if he gets out of a cell in three years," the General replied. X's heart sank, and he sighed. Roga was right; there was little chance the reploid would get off easily just because everyone picked on him. However, that wouldn't stop the Blue Hunter from standing up for him.  
  
"See you tommorrow, then," he said shortly, closing the door. Then he dove back into the pile of papers.  
  
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"What have you to say for yourself, Dosadai?" asked the General. The thin reploid, his gaze oddly listless and his complexion unusually pale, didn't respond. It wasn't even sure if he had heard the question. X, watching everything quietly, tried to catch Dosa's eye; but the deskworker seemd unaware of his surroundings.  
  
The meeting was interrupted, however, when the Red Alarm flashed throughout the room, and a deep, booming voice sounded, "MAVERICK ATTACK IN SECTOR A-12. REPEAT, MAVERICK ATTACK IN SECTOR A-12. BLUE SQUAD 3, REPORT TO THE SCENE IMMIDIATELY."  
  
"This will be finished later. Until then, put Dosadai in Holding," Roga commanded, even as X, the only member of the Blue Squad 3 present in the room, dashed out towards the Gate Center. He nearly ran down the squad leader, a bulky sort of fellow with mean, silverish-white eyes and jungle-green hair, who went by the name of Dio. The oddest thing about this squad leader, however, was that, underneath the padded layers of armor and thick suit, he was human. Quite a rarity in the Hunters. X dashed swiftly up the stairs, into the Gate Center, leaping directly into the port that led to Sector A-12. He thought he heard something that might have been a curse behind him, as the squad leader followed.  
  
The scene in Sector A-12 was none too pretty. Rubble and blood and bodies were scattered about, and the invading Mavericks squabbled angrily over whatever they found. Then the Blue Squad 3 fell upon them, Dio hacking away with an almost club-like blade of energy, flaring a rampant blue and rippling like flames. Akr, a canine-esque reploid, gunned down the minion-type Mavericks with his gattler, the rediculously oversized weapon screaming and roaring as the barrles whirrled, spitting a disastrous combination of hot lead and energy bolts. The third member, a serpentish Hunter by the name of Prince, layed all about him with a whirling staff tipped with spades of some intensely hard metal, smashing holes in Mavericks and stones and anything else that happened to be close to him, including Akr, which sent the gun-toting hound skidding away across the asphault, gattler still firing away aimlessly.  
  
"Watch where you swing that thing, you clot!" Akr snarled, his crunched side bleeding profusely. Prince paused his spinning staff, looked back at the downed Akr, and shrugged, his blueish tongue flicking in a slightly mocking fashion.  
  
"Don't get so close to this thing, dogface," he replied smoothly, and went back to smashing things. X himself fired off charged buster shots, obliterating rows upon rows of the small Mavericks.  
  
"Kinda strange the populous was so crushed by just a little army of minions," Dio said slowly, his pale eyes glancing about suspiciously. "They may not be warriors, but even a small reploid could've stood up to these things..." Then all eyes turned to the north, where the largest building in the city, a smoking, hole-riddled apartment building, lifted its crown over the roofs of all the others. And on top stood the Maverick clearly in charge of the assault.  
  
"My name is Aerthin Dorackin! Tell it to the folks at the pearly gates!" she roared, swinging one long arm out in an expansive gesture. She was sixteen feet of glittering, scale-armored monster, a deep emerald in tone with a breastplate of burnished gold, eyes like great, fiery rubies and a mane of coppery fur rushing down her serpentine neck. Antler-like horns of a silvery metal branched off the dragon Maverick's head, and in one talon she clutched a pearlish orb that pulsated with greenish light. And then, swinging her tufted tail about to shriek through the air like a whip, she cracked open the earth.  
  
The remaining buildings along the street lurched drunkenly around the chasm that opened between them, toppling ponderously in, filling the air with dust. While showy, it had little effect save to cloud the air and lessen visibility. X's buster hummed softly as it charged, and Akr climbed slowly to his feet, limping over to his gattler and hefting it up off the ground, setting the barrels whirling in preparation to fire. Prince struck the earth with his staff...and then the earth struck back. A great fist of stone and dirt raised up under his feet, shaking him onto the ground, and came down on him as a huge boulder, crushing the serpent Hunter and spraying the surroundings crimson. Dio, with a hoarse cry that may or may not have had any meaning, rushed over to the dust-choked pile of rubble, digging into it, throwing stones aside.   
  
"I shall bury you all alive!" bellowed Aerthin, lunging down from some vantage that had been hidden in all the dust. She landed directly atop Akr, raking her claws across his face, sending a vivid red gush into the air. Hunching her shoulders, she thrust her broad jaws forward, shining teeth digging into the sides of the reploid's head, crushing it with a horrid, metallic screech, then ripping away the lower jaw. She kicked away the spasming, dieing reploid, and grinned, baring stained, daggerlike teeth. X let off his shot, and the Maverick rocked backwards, tossing her head like a bull and snorting. Then she loped forward, four limbs throwing up dust and the remaining two, one clutching that green-flaming orb, poised for the attack. On a hunch, X aimed his next shot for the orb, and the moment the blast connected she shrieked in a shattering voice, twisting her long body up and around the orb, protecting it with her armored bulk. The Blue Hunter leapt up into the air, landing with a clank on her coiling body, grabbing her top jaw between bladed teeth and pulling with all his strength. She roared in defiance, bucking her head forward wildly, sending him flipping over top. Aerthin's ruby eyes narrowed gleefully as she pinned X to the earth with her snout, fangs scraping sidelong against his armor, cutting grooves in the blue metal. He fired his buster straight into her eye, and she drew back with a shriek, exposing the orb once more. He fired off three shots, each one striking home, and the Maverick's scream was intense, growing only louder when Dio, from behind, jammed his clublike weapon up between the scales in her armor. She coughed thick, dark blood all over the ground, shuddering, then whipping around to catch Dio with one of her deadly antlers. It ran straight through his side, coming out glistening and red the other side, and she tossed her head, throwing him into the wreckage of a building. But X had had time to charge a shot, and the blow shattered the dragon Maverick's precious orb completely.  
  
"Fool!" she screamed, her voice a horrid medly of rage and pain, "YOU SHALL DIE FOR THIS!!!" She hacked up a thick stream of blood, her jaws drizzling the dark liquid across the ground, and she swung her head forward, knocking the Blue Hunter back down to the earth and driving a fang into his chest. X's scream was cut off as the Maverick's suddenly lifeless weight slumped onto him, crushing down on his chest, tons of thick metal weighing down on him. The world around him seemed to become disoriented, meandering and spinning and darkening, finally tipping and sliding off one side like ink dumped out of a jug.  
  
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"This was...bad," the medic reploid muttered, staring into the room where the leader of the Blue Squad 3 had been placed. Dio was panting shallowly, wrapped up like some sort of a mummy, countless broken bones and a wicked gash in one side. Prince had been rebuilt almost entirely, and Akr was at the moment being revived into his own new body. But they were all considered the lucky ones. No one had found any trace of X--nor of the dead dragon Maverick, Aerthin Dorackin. They could only assume the pair of them had been swept off by other Mavericks before the Hunter Rescue force had arrived.  
  
"Hey..." whispered Dio, forcing his pale eyes open and gesturing weakly at the medic. The reploid scurried over, grimacing. "What happened to my Squad?"  
  
"Prince has been repaired," the medic replied, "And Akr's currently in the process of revival. X...could not be found." Dio groaned.  
  
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(Well, that was fun! If this story gets any good reviews, you could expect the next chapter fairly quickly. If not...then don't.) 


	2. Chapter 2: Quite a Game

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 2:  
  
Quite a Game  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Well, no reviews last chapter, but this thing's just too much fun for me to stop writing now. So I'll continue it on until I'm out of ideas--then I'll drop it and never look at it again, likely.  
  
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He swung his legs back and forth like an anxious child, his arms held rigid, hands clamped to the edge of the bed. A tiny smile rested on his face, though there was no echo of it in his steel-toned eyes. He never blinked, never twitched, not noticing the thin streak of blood that marked his face and slowly dried, not noticing when, once, the door to his left slid open, allowing some meager amount of light into the dark room, and a curious Maverick looked in, only to run away when he saw the occupents. Zero's object of study was none other than the Blue Hunter, X, who lay, unconscious and battered, on the second bed of the room.  
  
Zero had wandered by the destroyed battlefield mostly by chance. He honestly hadn't expected much, save maybe Aerthin's body. She had never been held in high esteem by her comrades--while powerful, she was a complete idiot, incapable of realizing he basic idea of protecting her major weakness. And indeed, he had found Aerthin, but, to his surprise, she was not alone. The Hunters scattered around in various states of destruction had piqued his curiousity, as he recognized the markings on their armor that identified them as the Blue Squad 3. And, as he had suspected, X was a member of that unit.   
  
So he had unceremoniously shoved the dead dragon Maverick out of the way, picked up the bloodied Hunter, and taken him back home like a little boy with a hurt bird. He wasn't sure why he did it--he knew that Sigma wouldn't like the idea of an uninfected Hunter being allowed to laze about the home base, but then, Sigma could go jump in a lake for all the Red Maverick cared. And hopefully drown. There was no love lost between the two Mavericks.  
  
"Wakey wakey, Hunter," Zero said at last, his silky voice a strange, meandering blend of hesitation, amusement, and something that might have been considered kindness, had the voice belonged to someone else. X stirred slightly, mumbling something, and sighed, rolling over--straight off the edge of the bed and onto the floor.  
  
"Clutz," the Red Maverick said, sticking his tongue out at the still-sleeping Hunter in a childish gesture. Zero didn't care if some of his habits were infantile, however. He had free reign to do whatever the heck he felt like, and anyone who saw fit to say something about it would find themselves holding their head in their hands.  
  
The door slid open, and a spidery-looking Maverick with goggling eyes and a droll expression leaned in.  
  
"Sigma orders you to his Throne Room, Sir," the Maverick stated, his voice rough as though he were groggy from a long sleep.  
  
"Sigma can go and sit on his stove," Zero replied, not looking at the Maverick. "I'm busy." The spidery, fish-eyed Maverick gulped. Sigma was not above performing the silly little act known as "shooting the messenger." Zero mentally added that to the list of reasons why Sigma was an idiot.  
  
"Yes, Sir," the sleepy-sounding Maverick gasped out at last, turning and racing away, forgetting to close the door.   
  
"And you are a pain. Why won't you wake up?" Zero asked, staring at the Hunter on the floor. He shrugged, then, and got up, walking out into the hall and closing the door behind him. He considered the lock for a moment, then decided that Sigma deserved it if the little blue bugger wreaked a bit of havoc while his watcher was gone on the bald moron's errands.  
  
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"I'm not very pleased at all this, Bloodrush," Sigma said angrily. Normally, the severe set of his face and the fathomless nature of his dark eyes was sufficient to intimidate any Maverick. Zero, however, was idly studdying a spot on the wall well beyond the Maverick Leader's head.  
  
"I think I'm already aware of this. That's why you hit me, remember? Now I'd just love to repay the little favor," Zero gestured vaguely towards his face, where the line of dried blood still rested untouched, "but I've got a little something waiting back in my room, so I'm not in the mood for a brawl."  
  
"BLOODRUSH!!" roared Sigma, slamming his hand down on the arm of his "throne," which Zero considered an overhauled lawnchair. "I grow weary of your insistant insubordination! You may be the strongest of my warriors, but you are still MINE!! You owe your alliegience to ME!!" Zero tilted his head, his blonde hair, released from its customary ponytail, obscuring half his face. His steel-toned eyes studied Sigma intently.  
  
"You've got things a bit wrong there, Siggy ol' boy," he purred at last, his silky voice soft like a caress--showing, to those who knew the Red Maverick well enough, that its owner was at his most dangerous. "If anything, I could be said to own you. I was here first, after all, and while you may have taken on all the image onto your shiny pate, you can't say you're anything more than my own puppet to play with in the end." Then he grinned, a wicked, feral look. "I had a puppet once, I think. I'm pretty sure I could dig it up again if I wanted to. But there's not much left now." He turned and walked away, then glanced over his shoulder, his steel eyes glacier-locked. "I cut up all its strings."  
  
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"I am not going to just sit around like a toad on a tree stump all day," Dio growled. His pale eyes were vicious and angry, and he was armed with a pair of metal crutches which he used with every bit as much efficiency as his beloved beam sword. Three of the medical staff, two human and one a rather inexperianced reploid, had already been confined to the beds they normally tended when they attempted to get the fiery squad leader back to bed.  
  
"Please, sir, you aren't completely healed," a medic reploid said calmly. He had already been clubbed twice when he tried to get any closer than he currently was, but he kept just a fraction of an inch outside of the human's reach without taking a toe backwards.  
  
"Bull," was Dio's snarled reply. He hopped a quick step forward and lashed out with one crutch, expertly balancing on his good leg. The medic, however, moved smoothly out of the way, his expression staying exactly the same.  
  
"X is out there being carted around by some mechanical slimeball, and you're just sitting around on your rears chattering like a bunch of old ladies! If you won't bother to help him, I will!"  
  
"And a fat lot of good a busted airbag like you would do him," growled General Roga, stomping into the room. Careless of the deadly crutches, he strode straight up to Dio and plucked him off the ground, depositing him back on his bed. "Now stay there. No one in this ward has half a brain, or else they'd have told you I already have seven units out searching for our little lost sheep. I would have sent more, but the Mavs are getting restless, and I want to keep some squads in case of another attack."  
  
Dio sighed and layed back at last. Within a few seconds, he was fast asleep.  
  
"Tough bugger, for a human," remarked Roga, before walking out of the ward.  
  
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The first thing that struck X as odd was that he felt much lighter. Not just the lost weight of the dead dragon Maverick which had previously been crushing him, but also his armor was missing. The next thing he noted was that he was in someplace very dark, tangled up in a blanket. It took him about a minute of squirming to free himself from the fabricy snare, and then he realized he was on the floor next to a bed. He knew already he was in no Headquarters place--the room smelled of dust and blood, both fresh and old. He suspected the fresh scent to be his own--his chest still ached sharply from when it had been skewered on Aerthin's fang.  
  
"Now what could this mysterious place be?" the Hunter mused aloud, trying to pierce the impenatrable darkness as he looked about.  
  
"My room," came the reply, in a smooth, silky voice that X recognized with a chill.  
  
"Alright, Bloodrush, you seem to have me rather well captured, so what do you plan to do?" X asked, staring into the darkness, and clenching his hands into fists. His chest may hurt like crazy, but he still intended to put up as good a fight as was possible.  
  
"First, carve out your tongue if you don't call me Zero," the voice replied.  
  
"Zero, then," X said quickly. Much as it got him in trouble back in Headquarters, he would be greatly saddened to be parted from his tongue.  
  
"He learns! Marvelous, Hunter. As to what I may do with you, that I'm not sure. But I didn't feel like letting that dead beast slobber all over you anymore. She was always as dumb as a rock anyway." The lights were flicked on, and X blinked rapidly in the sudden lack of darkness. There on the bed before him sat Zero, the infamous Bloodrush. Without his full ensamble of armor, he seemed almost harmless, a 20-something fellow with messy hair and an odd smile. But his eyes were steel frost, glittering like the fine edge of a blade, and about as emotionless as one.  
  
"No, I don't plan on turning you Maverick. That'd make Sigma happy, and that chromedome needs to learn to choke on his tongue." With that, the Red Maverick stood. "The door isn't locked, and your armor's under the bed. The halls are usually pretty clear from here to Transport. Leave if you want. But...I wouldn't go back to Hunter Headquarters if I were you. Something rather nasty is about to happen there." He slid open the door, casting a single glance over his shoulder. "Ta-ta!"  
  
X just sat and gaped after him. He had just been handed his escape from the heart of all Maverick activity by the most notorious killer ever to exist. And he wondered how the heck any one person could be so crazy.  
  
No time to worry about that, though. He slid his arm under the bed, slowly in case of traps, and his fingers touched the cold metal of his shoulderplate armor. Dragging it out, he retrieved the rest of it piece by piece, trying to avoid making too much noise. Of course, gonglike clangs and crashes of metal still rang throughout the room as he began fitting it on, locking the various pieces into one another to form an apparently seamless encasement, finally ending with the helmet fitted tightly over his messy hair.  
  
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"Hagh! Nrrr..." was all Akr managed to get out of his mouth the moment he woke up. Then the hound reploid blinked his chocolate-brown eyes, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Then Dio leaned over him, his white-silver eyes snickering at the newly-revived Hunter.  
  
"Welcome back to the land of the living, then," the Squad Leader said. "And we're gonna get busy as soon as those bozos in the ward let me out of bed for more than six minutes. Nobody can find X."  
  
"Reeegh. Blah! I think my head was broken. Was my head broken? Dangit, it still hurts! Is my head STILL broken?" Akr began rambling, the usual tendancy of a reploid which was dead and suddenly alive again. He shook his head, his eyes rolling around in a disoriented fashion. "Who broke my head?"  
  
"Yes, your head was broken by Aerthin, but it's not broken anymore," a medic replied. "We fixed it!"  
  
"Oh.." Akr said slowly. "That's good then. Wait! I think I remember now. Prince hit me. I remember that," the canine yipped. Dio snickered.  
  
"Well, that's a start at least."  
  
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Aerthin II mumbled something unflattering as she stomped out of Sigma's Throne Room.  
  
"Overglorified, pompous, halfwitted slimeball..." she snarled. She was the "sequal" to the destroyed Aerthin Dorackin, and immidiately everything that her predecessor had done, she was saddled with the blame for. The sapphire-scaled dragon Maverick was proud that she could truthfully admit to being smarter than the first Aerthin, but no one else seemed to care that much. She tossed her head like an irate horse, snorting out a cloud of steam.  
  
"So Aerthin I was a moron. That doesn't mean I am! I'll show that arrogant dimwit..." she continued, growling to herself as she clomped along the hallway. Then she blinked her large emerald eyes, staring at the figure moving sneakily down the hall. Humanoid, armor of a middling shade of blue, none too tall...that was no Maverick.  
  
"Hey you! Intruder! Stop right there!" she bellowed, her voice shaking bits of dust from the walls as she charged forward, her metal talons screeching loudly against the floor and one branching antler leaving a gouge along the ceiling. The intruder glanced back, his green eyes startled, and then started to run, the right arm of his armor twisting and folding up on itself to form the buster cannon that was standard for human-formed reploids. Aerthin II roared, filling the hall with a cloud of hot steam, as she recognized him.  
  
"Get back hear and fight, Hunter!" she screamed, her tail thrashing back and forth and making the entire place shudder as it connected with the wall. Throwing forward a claw, she pointed, and the hallway in front of the Blue Hunter collapsed, water spraying cheerfully from piping and shattering the stone, making the floor slick. Where her prequal had controlled earth, Aerthin II had been chosen for water element.  
  
X stopped and turned back, his fully-charged buster shot aimed straight for the dragon Maverick's left eye. She swung her head, but the small hallway didn't allow her enough room to get out of the way, and she was pushed backwards a few feet by the shot. Then she looked up and grinned.  
  
"I'm not as stupid as Aerthin Dorackin the first was!" she roared gleefully, charging straight for the Hunter. She knew that once in close combat, all advantages would be hers--she could simply crush him up against a wall with her heavy bulk. And, unlike the stupid first Aerthin, her power orb was shielded by a thick layer of scaled chest armor. All her thoughts of the glorification that would come from destroying the Hunter nuiscance fled, however, as a beam saber suddenly dug itself into her back between her shoulders, and she twisted about in surprise, her emerald eyes wide as she stared at the Red Maverick.  
  
"Bloodrush, Why? He's a Hunter!" she said in a low voice, thick blood slipping between her fangs and drooling down her neck. Then those wide, emerald eyes went dark, and she slumped over, dead with Zero's single blow.   
  
The Maverick disdainfully pulled free his saber, deactivating it, the flaring neon light fading away like an imprint of the sun on one's eyes. Then he snickered, made an odd sort of salute to X, and climbed off the dragon Maverick's corpse.  
  
"I had a feeling that all her trumpeting meant she found you," he said simply, walking up beside X. The Blue Hunter backed away, buster readied. Zero laughed out loud. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead, silly Hunter. Now get out of here. I'll come for you when I've found my failsafe." The Red Maverick tore his beam saber through the block, opening a rough doorway within a few moments.  
  
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"........so they just let you go," Roga said, his eyes blank and his voice flat. X nodded.  
  
"The only thing I could think of it is political intrigue. Bloodrush doesn't like Sigma, Sigma doesn't like Bloodrush. And one's always trying to cut the other's feet out from under him," the Blue Hunter said, shrugging.   
  
"And Bloodrush told you that he had something planned for HQ," Roga said, voice still perfectly flat.  
  
"Yeah, but that's no big surprise. When DON'T the Mavericks have something planned for us?" X replied, shrugging again. He had never much cared for Roga, and the disbelief plain in the General's manner was agitating him. Deciding to take advantage of whatever amount of prestige he had as a member of Blue Squad 3, he stood up abruptly. "I'd like to take my leave now, sir. Good day." And he walked out of the room.  
  
The first person he ran into--literally--was Dio, accidentally knocking the Squad Leader on the ground.  
  
"Well, I guess that counts as a hello! Welcome back, X. Akr hasn't been too cognitive since he got revived, he keeps forgetting things, but Prince and I've been hoping you'd be found quick. Of course, I would have been out there looking, but those dang ward medics seem to think I can't take a drink by myself anymore," the dark-haired human said, pulling himself up using X's offered hand. "So, I heard you reappeared under some pretty odd circumstances?" X nodded, smiling slightly. Dio's silver-white eyes were eternally mean-looking, and he was gruff and irratible more often than not, but he was a good friend for all his quirks.  
  
"And boy, have I got a story to tell," the Blue Hunter laughed. "But first, I think I want to get patched up a bit." Dio nodded, finally bothering to take in X's condition. The reploid was indeed rather bashed up. His armor was caked with dust and dirt, and several plates didn't fit quite right, having been bent out of shape when the dragon Maverick had fallen on him. The hole in the breastplate revealed that little had been done to help the raw-looking gash in the Hunter's chest.  
  
"Yeah, I'd say you could use a good polishing," Dio said then, and set off down the hall beside the Blue Hunter. "But I expect full detail, you hear? Prince'll likely want to know as well."  
  
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"Killer," Zero hissed with a grin that bared his teeth ferally. He had been spending the past several hours staring endlessly into the glowing computer screen, reading the lines of incomprehensible numbers and figures that zipped by. His right hand twitched across the keyboard every now and again, entering something into the few blank spaces that opened in the lines of symbols. True, he would much rather be out slaughtering things than sitting at a desk drumming away on a keyboard, but the vicious concoction he was building was worth the endless period of coding. It was his failsafe, his own little toy that would allow him to spit in Sigma's face yet again. "Eat that, machoman."  
  
Aerthin Dorackin--the third--blinked over his shoulder. The Red Maverick didn't really notice until the scarlet-scaled dragon Maverick's long tongue lolled out and she began panting like a tired dog.  
  
"Oooh, that's a pretty little thing, won't it be?" she said dreamily. While as stupid as any Aerthin Dorackin had been, this fire-powered reincarnation of the dragon Maverick line was a genious at coding. "But you've got a few things that need worked out there, ah-huh, ooh, lemme..." She tried to push Zero slowly from his seat, her sulphur-yellow eyes fixed unblinkingly on the computer screen. For a moment, the Red Maverick considered simply gutting the pushy dragon, but then he grinned. She was stupid, but all of the Aerthin Dorackin line had disliked Sigma.  
  
"Sure, Aer. But if Sigma finds out, you won't be able to find your head next morning," he warned. The dragon nodded in a distracted nature.  
  
"Of course, of course, oooh pretty pretty..." she began whipping up to the beginning, and her talons flew swiftly and lightly over the keys, tapping in new figures. Zero snickered. His failsafe would be done in no time.  
  
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Akr twisted his head side to side as far as it would go, which meant that half the time X was talking the canine Hunter was wearing his noggin backwards. Such a sight may have been disturbing to a human, but X continued his story without a hitch, ignoring the discombobulated reploid.  
  
"...quite a game," Dio said at last. "Yes indeed, quite a game they're playing." Prince hissed contemplatively, his lidless, dark eyes staring off into space. X allowed himself a small smile at last. General Roga may have been suspicious of him, as was the medic assigned to patching him up, but the Blue Squad 3--with the possible exception of Akr, who hadn't been the same since his head was crushed by the dragon Maverick--were his friends, and they trusted him fully.   
  
The group was interrupted when the door was slammed open. A shallow-eyed reploid--Detris, X thought his name was--stuck his head into the room. Vacant-looking though he was, Detris was of high rank, and actually quite clever and witty. Now, however, his expression was somber, making him look something like a fish.  
  
"Akr, sorry dude, but you've been dismissed from the Blue Squad 3," he said softly, holding the dismissal notice loosely in his hand. He shrugged, clearly indicating there was nothing he could do.   
  
The canine reploid, for the first time, seemed to really take notice of what was being said to him.  
  
"What? Bu...but I can't! I...I..." he stuttered--a new habit he had taken up--his brown eyes growing wide. Detris sighed.  
  
"Supposedly, it's only temporary, until you recover completely. You haven't held up in training, and you've been declared medically unfit to maintain your position. The sad part is, they're likely right. You've been out of it, dude," Detris said, his voice heavy. Detris and Akr had been good friends for a long while--before the pair were promoted into various Squads, Detris becoming Squad Leader of the Night Covert Squad and Akr becoming First Gunman of the elite Blue Squad 3, they had both been in the rookie unit RedGuns, the unit for training in using non-buster firearms.  
  
But Dio was ever-pracitcal. With a hoarse cough, he ended abruptly the sudden silence that had claoked the room.  
  
"Who will be replacing Akr?" he asked roughly. Detris' smile was so forced it made him look sick.  
  
"I am."  
  
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Down in his cell, Dosadai wrung his hands and paced. Discipline in the HQ was rigid and unforgiving, and he was going to be stuck down there for quite a while.  
  
"Oh, what a pity," he moaned aloud, his hazy eyes staring blindly at the wall. He had felt a pent-up sort of feverish tension for as long as he had been in here, but suddenly, not an hour before, his sight had failed him and a foggish daze crashed down on him. Vaguely he thought he must be going mad from the small quarters, even as he said a cheerful hello to a guard who tromped down the hall.  
  
Now he curled himself up in a corner, his breath rattling into his overheated body, tiny shudders rippling up and down his arms and legs. With a soft exclamation, a final denial of his fate, his breath froze in his chest, his feverish eyes fogged over, and his body went rigidly still. 


	3. Chapter 3: Demons and Curses

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 3:  
  
Demons and Curses  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Yay! Reviews from friends are good ^_^ Now if everyone else would just follow their lead, I'd be nice and happy, but meh. This is STILL fun to write, even if y'all don't like talkin' to me!   
  
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The entire medical ward was in an uproar. As soon as Dosadai had been found, the blame and responsibility had fallen on their shoulders. At the moment, General Roga was getting the info so far collected from a twitchy-looking human medic.  
  
"Well, General Santaroga, sir-" he began, but he cut off with a strangled squeal when Roga picked him up off the ground by his shoulders.  
  
"WHAT did you call me?" he growled. The medic whimpered.  
  
"Roga! Roga, sir!" he jibbered.  
  
"That's what I thought," Roga replied, dropping him. The medic twitched, taking a step back. Roga had always hated his full name--it came straight from the pages of a book--but he wasn't usually so aggressive about it.  
  
"Anyway, General Roga, sir, what we've discerned is that it's a new reploid virus. And a nasty one, at that. Once transferred to a host, it waits quietly for three months or so, making copies of itself and spreading--though we don't know how yet--to other reploids as well. Then, once it 'comes to life,' it starts tampering with the systems. The first symptoms are paranoia, sporadic aggression, and extreme detatchment, alternating. After a week, it has completely overrun the reploid's systems, and then it kills, by hacking through process boundries and overheating everything. I guess you could say it overclocks them to death. The worst part is, there's no coming back. It melts nearly all the internal workings, including the reploid chip."  
  
Roga took a moment to absorb what the medic had said. No coming back...unknown methods of transfer...he hadn't realized he was shaking slightly until the medic tentatively asked him if something was wrong.  
  
"Of course something's wrong, you idiot! Dosadai was a deskworker, and he was always being dragged from one end of HQ to the other! There's no telling how many reploids could start dropping from this thing! You have got to find a vaccine, and fast!" Roga roared. He barely restrained himself from clocking the twitching medic. Then the symptoms of the virus rang through his head. 'Paranoia and sporadic aggression...' and he stared blankly at the wall.  
  
"...General Roga? Sir?" the medic asked slowly, inching further away. The reploid didn't seem to hear him, sunk deep down into his own thoughts. Thoughts which, to the suddenly frightened General, seemed to be taking on a hazy, red twinge. He didn't even notice when he sank to his knees, his eyes distantly staring off. The twitchy medic cursed, very loudly.  
  
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"So Roga's going to be dead in an unknown amount of days," Dio said slowly. "Things just keep getting better and better. Who's standing in?" The girl who had delivered the dreary news tilted her head.  
  
"You are. You're of highest rank currently at the base. I'll be filling in as Blue Squad 3 Leader and First Beamsaber." She patted the hilt of the weapon hanging at her hip, which, when activated, was a slender, rapier-like instrument that she used with deadly efficiency.  
  
"Alright then, Kariss. We just have to hope-" Dio was cut off when the alarm rang, the clear voice announcing that things were getting worse by the minute.  
  
"Maverick attack in Sector A-22! Blue Squad 3, report to the Gate Center immidiately!" Dio looked to his former team, the Elites, X with First Buster, Prince with First Melee, Detris with Firs Firearm, and now, Katriss with First Beamsaber. He smiled slightly.   
  
"Well then, Kariss, I entrust my team to you."  
  
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X's first shot tore down three small airborn Mavs at once. He wasn't bothering to keep count, though; the head of the teeming gang of minion-types was sure to be somewhere about. But when she appeared, X's jaw dropped at the sheer stupidity of it all.  
  
"I am Aerthin Dorackin III!" she bellowed, standing proudly atop a building. Then, without further banter, she charged downwards. X sighed.  
  
"When is Sigma going to get the idea through his shiny head that ALL Aerthin Dorackins are idiots?" he asked no one. Kariss just laughed, swinging her slender energy blade about as she watched the dragon Maverick approach.  
  
"And so I shall die!" she roared, spitting flames and smoke, "But for the glory of Lord Bloodrush!" And she leapt upon them in a burst of inferno.  
  
The battle--if it could be called such a thing--was nothing but a big, chaotic jumbled of firing weapons and smoke. Some cried out, but their voice was lost to drift helplessly in the thick smog. It took the Hunters a long while to realize that Aerthin Dorackin III was already dead.  
  
"Dragons clearly aren't good for kamikaze," Kariss laughed, covered in soot. But her snickering trailed off as Prince cast about, clearly looking for something.  
  
"The Mavs took X!" he paused. "Again!" Detris kicked over a chunk of Aerthin's scorched, scarlet-scaled armor.  
  
"For the glory of Lord Bloodrush," he mused. "And demons and curses are running rampant amongst us."  
  
Prince dropped to all fours, his metallic tongue flicking, hunting about to find out where X had vanished.  
  
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"Huh," Zero said musingly. X just glared back.  
  
"What do you want, Maverick?" the Hunter growled. He was bound with thick, rigid chains; crude, but efficient.  
  
"I told you I'd come for you when I found my failsafe," he replied with a snicker. Then, taking his saber, he hacked away the heavy chains. X immidiately aimed his buster at the Maverick, flickers of energy racing along it as it charged.  
  
"Good show!" the Red Maverick purred. X fired.  
  
Zero leapt smoothly into the air, flipped himself head-over-heels, and came down on X, saber flaring. The Blue Hunter skidded out of the way and fired again, the shot sizzling off of Zero's armor. He whirled, bringing his sword to bear, striking with it like the fang of a snake, leaving a blackened streak against X's sapphire-blue armor. X hopped backwards, firing off three shots rapid-fire, two of them clipping the crimson Maverick, who cut across in a sweeping strike that left a hissing line across X's chest. The Hunter kicked out, his booted feet connecting solidly with Zero's middriff, folding the reploid over his leg. But that overbalanced X, as Zero was rather heavy, and he toppled over on top of the Maverick, who grabbed his shoulder with one hand and stabbed at him with the neon-green saber. X fired, shearing a hole in Zero's shoulder armor, the Mav's blonde hair crackling and flying about wildly in the rush of energy. Zero rolled over, tiwsting X's arm and pinning him face down to the floor, cackling.  
  
"Say it!" he snarled, deactivating his saber and pressing the still-hot end of the hilt down between X's shoulders. "Say my name!" X twisted his head, to stare wide-eyed back at Zero. The Maverick grinned, panting, his steel eyes wild. Something in the back of X's head protested this twisted scene, but fear overrode it; he was a button-touch away from lacking a head.  
  
"Bloodrush," the Hunter choked out, and only a second afterwards realized his mistake of once again calling the Maverick by his "common" name--Zero screamed in frustrated rage, drawing back his saber and flaring it to life. X shrieked even before the Maverick wrenched his arm and, with a single, shattering blow, swung down his blade, tearing it straight through X's armor and arm just above the elbow. The saber ripped through the other side in a dark, misty spray, all sound of sizzling metal and bursting wires and spilling blood drowned out by the frightful sound of Zero's roar and X's screech.  
  
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The chaotic situation had grown in the medical ward. Humans and reploids alike raced all about, many shouting, some crashing into one another, all in a mad rush to be everywhere at once.  
  
A froggish reploid leapt over the head of a spindly human, and a little girl dragging supplies slipped between the legs of a bull reploid.   
  
"Chaos," grumbled Reggae, the ancient reploid in charge of the medical ward. He was a mantis-based reploid, with wide, goldish eyes and feathery antennae branching above his head. And he was rather distraught to see his domain falling so easily prey to the rush and panic.  
  
Then, of course, things got worse.  
  
A flash, indicatory of teleportation, blinded the medics for a moment, and then a huge mess was dropped right into the middle of the room. Everything came to a screeching halt. Then the bloody, charred, twisted thing of metal and exposed wires was indetified.  
  
"X?" gasped Reggae, stumbling over a small platapuss reploid as he stepped towards the wreck of a Hunter. An unnaturally metallic, warped groan answered him. Reggae snarled something quite innappropriate.  
  
"Major fixer-upper!" he shouted at an assistant. "Move, man! He's not goin' be alive for long in that shape! You," he jabbed a long, emerald finger at another medic, "go get Kariss! And Dio!" He stood silent for a moment, everyone staring either at him or at the blackish pool gathering on the floor. Then Reggae's arm-mounted beamsabers sprung to life, flaring crimson, as they had the tendancy to do when he was angry. "WHY ISN'T ANYONE MOVING?!" At his roar, the entire room sprang back to life, medics rushing about with even more urgency than before.  
  
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"This is it, this is it, I'm dead, I should've seen this coming, HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID?" Kariss kept up a running self-chastisement as she charged headlong down the hall, weaving past obstructions and jumping over some. Not far behind her, Dio was also dashing for the medical ward, Prince and Akr following the stand-in General's heels of their own accord. Since being demoted, Akr had begun to make a truly vicious effort to recover his former poise, and he only ran into the wall thrice on the way. All together, especially with the two trailing reploids who were still in full armor, they sounded like an angry pack of elephants on their way.  
  
"X, if you're dead...I'll kill you," Dio said, failing to find anything better to say to himself. The Blue Hunter wouldn't be dead. He couldn't be. He had been smashed up before--never quite so bad as this, but still...he wouldn't be dead. 


	4. Chapter 4: The Failsafe

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 4:  
  
The Failsafe  
  
___________________  
  
Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Yay to MooMoo, for reviewing! CHEER!!! And also, I apologize for the way the voice in X's head talks. It's hard to read, I know. But then, the thing's hard to understand if you're listening to it, anyway. And it used to be even harder, when I just ran all the words together!  
  
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Reggae was actually quite proud of his domain now. After all the collective disastor, the medics had finally reclaimed sense. There was still a whole mess of activity which, to the untrained eye, might appear chaotic. However, Reggae had complete order, no one tripping over each other or running into things, and everyone exactly where they should be.  
  
Back in a smaller room, one of those dedicated to reploid repairs, Law was working himself into a near panic. Law was a highly competent medic reploid, who seemed to be based off some sort of spider. Or something. His creator had been unconventional and slightly eccentric, but Law was levelheaded--most of the time. In any case, despite the fact that Law was very odd-looking, he was good and swift, what with an extra pair of limbs at his disposal. But, having been assigned to repair the mangled form of X, he was being taxed clear to his limits, rushing about, shrieking in his high, squealish voice for more this, more that, shoving people out of the way, and sometimes climbing up walls to get a better angle.  
  
X had been almost completely destroyed--eye lenses smashed out to blind him, chest shredded open to expose mangled wires, limbs skewed about in ways they were never meant to be--he had had to be cut out of the wreck of his armor, of which numerous plates were already missing. Even his voice synthesizer had been damaged.  
  
The hours wore away, Dio, Kariss, Prince, and Akr all standing just outside the room like silent guardians, peering in whenever the door swung open, and gettingly chased away again by an angry Law.  
  
Finally, a full twenty-or-so hours since the start, Law staggered out, his eyes over-bright from exhaustion, but gleaming also with a look of moderate satisfaction.  
  
"Considering what I got, I say I did a right good job," he said, his oddly piping voice weary. "You folkses can go in, but don't touch nothing. You'll prolly get nothing for your company, though. He's sound asleep. An'na good thing, that." Dio glanced at Kariss, who heaved a great sigh.  
  
"Thank you, Law."  
  
"M'job, ma'am," Law replied, nodding his head. Then he staggered away, intent on finding a good long sleep.  
  
Dio was first into the room, Kariss following right on his heels. Prince glanced back at Akr before going in after them, and couldn't help but snicker at the very canine expression of relieved joy on the reploid's face. But even with the repairs so far made, X was a bit of a shock to see.  
  
The requirment for speed had meant they didn't have time to match tones and metals, as was often the case in a reploid that was so utterly mashed. The result was that X reminded Kariss of the old legend of Frankenstine's monster, a big mismatch of pieces. That would be fixed later, of course.   
  
Dio sighed, and X, sliding open one slightly discolored eye, mirrored him.  
  
"I got torn up pretty badly that time, didn't I?" X asked. Because of the damage to his voice synthesizer, which would be repaired eventually but wasn't life-threatening and so had been left, his voice was metallic and hollow, slightly warped, the tones cracking unevenly.  
  
"Y'sure did, blue boy," Dio replied, grinning. "And I expect you to tell me what happened, once you can talk straight."  
  
"And SEE straight," X added, opening his other eye. It, too, was tinted wrongly, but different from the first, making the reploid look even stranger, with one eye that was too gray, and one that was too blue. "I think if things don't slow down their danged spinning, I'm going to get a headache." Dio snickered, but he went silent as Kariss choked on a sob.  
  
"I'm sorry, X..." she said bitterly. "This is all my fault...I was such an idiot! I didn't even think that the Mav's kamikaze might just be a cover up..." X started to roll his eyes, then thought better of it when it made things start growing even more loopy.  
  
"Don't you dare, Kariss. I'm a big boy, see? I should've been looking out for that, since I'd realized by then that Bloodrush has some sort of weird vendetta against me," the battered reploid protested. Dio looked about to comment, but Reggae coming in the door halted him.  
  
"Out, weaslers!" he snapped, using his own odd nickname for the Hunters. "Let the fellow sleep before he collapses!" And with that he shooed them out of the room, closing--and locking--the door behind them.  
  
"The world isn't quite falling apart yet, then," Dio said with a smile.   
  
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Zero was in his room, the lights out, staring off at the far wall. A grin showed on his face every now and again. Beside him, the blood spattered across it since dried, was a chunk of X's armor he had torn away at one point or another. Once X's screams had died away, he had lost track of time as he got lost in his own beastial rage. Now, he didn't even realize he was continuosly the cold, sapphire metal.  
  
"They'll find out soon, X. And then what will they do? What will YOU do? You can't be a Hunter anymore, X!"  
  
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"Diagnostics, diagnostics, o the annoyance..." sang Dnia, a robin-based reploid. She was a good medic, but overall something of a bubblehead, and so she was often assigned things like filework and examing diagnostic results. At the moment, on the screen before her, was the diagnostic and repair log for X. As long as everything checked out alright, the reploid would be free to go today. Dnia twittered a little song to herself, then blinked as she studied a portion of the document before her.  
  
"Nnnn, what's this?" That looks a bit funny..." It was a chemical signature used to detect foreign viruses, and related invaders of reploid systems.  
  
"No no no!" she chirped as she examined the signature, mentally comparing it to various others she had memorized. But it came out to match the same two no matter how she looked at it. One marked it as some sort of vaccine for the mysterious "demon curse," the one that had so far incapacitated three Hunters, six more in quarantine, suspected to be infected. She could make thin suppositions as to how that could possibly have happened. But the other portion of the signature had only one match...the Maverick virus. It was impossible.  
  
"Reggae, report in. I need you to see something," she said over her com, the one specially editioned to the medics.   
  
"Alright, you're in documentations, right?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
__________________  
  
Reggae paced back and forth, confused and agitated. X was Maverick? No, the virus, according to a more complicated review, was inactive. The Maverick virus, the original at least, did not simply sit around and bide its time. This was some sort of mutation, something that could worm itself into even X's supposed immune systems.  
  
"Send for Dio and Kariss. They'll need to know what's going on, and decide what to tell X," Reggae at last instructed Dnia.  
  
"What to tell X about what?" asked Dio from just behind them. Reggae jumped and pivoted agiley.  
  
"Ah, Dio, just who I wanted to see!" he said with feigned cheerfullness as Dnia raced off. "We have a bit of a problem, you see." He pointed with one slender at the screen, which was all gabbledegook to the human Hunter. "We always run a general diagnostic before releasing a patient, of course. But we've got a bit of a problem with X's." Dio just looked at him blankly, clearly waiting for the mantis to continue. The reploid sighed.  
  
"...from what the diagnostic tells us, X should be Maverick. But he's not. He's got the virus--well, he's got A virus--but it seems to be a mutation of the Maverick virus, and it's not really doing anything." And stoic Dio, who could grit his teeth and plow onwards through near any disastor, crumpled to the foor like a broken-legged doll.  
  
"Everything's on a tour bus to heck, and Sigma's driving," he said hollowly. Reggae tapped his metallic fingers together.  
  
"Not Sigma. This bus belongs to a third party. And everyone by now knows about how Bloodrush keeps picking on X. I suspect our little red friend is pulling some sort of experiment. But I've a trick worth two of that!" Reggae said, tilting his head back, his antennae twitching. Dio blinked in confusion--he was still processing somewhere around the beginning of "X should be Maverick."   
  
"Don't bother," Dnia said. Her voice was unnatural-sounding, cheerless, quaking slightly. Reggae and Dio both turned, and their eyes went wide.  
  
She was trembling, dark blood fanning down her shoulder. Her eyes were wide and staring, glazed with fear. But she most certainly would not move an inch, for what stood behind her, his crimson armor gleaming harshly in the flourescent light, his hair still streaked with char, dirt, and blood from his last battle, was the Maverick himself.  
  
"Hello, boys. Just thought I'd let myself in, hope you don't mind," Zero purred. "I simply have to pick up something I dropped off here a while back. Thanks for patching him up for me, by the way." He snickered, tilting the small handheld buster he had pressed to Dnia's back. "This twit insists she doesn't know where X is."  
  
"You can't have him," Dio growled, pulling the hilt of his beamsaber free of its holster. It surged into life like a neon flame.  
  
"You're into the habit of housing Mavericks, now? My little failsafe virus may not be active yet, but it's trained to wake at my call. Quite a genious bit of work, don't you think? The last work of the interestingly adept imbecile, Aerthin Dorackin III. Quite an idiot, but she could do anything on a computer," the Red Maverick began laughing, but his steel eyes were still iced over. Then the laugh was gone, and he frowned. "Now tell me where my toy is before I get angry." Dio snarled and, in a very typical act of defiance, spat at the crazy reploid. He raised his blade, and, with a wordless roar, charged. Zeor shoved Dnia out of the way and fired, the small buster shots ricocheting off the energy blade that Dio swept in their path. The Maverick tossed the buster away in disgust, and drew his own beamsaber, his handheld lightning bolt.  
  
The alarm was ringing out, a siren that began its wail the second the two sabers connected, energy shrieking out into a fan about them, ember-like shreds of it flickering away.  
  
The pounding of Hunter boots rang through the halls. The base was alerted, and every unit there was pouring down on them. Zero snarled, leaping suddenly backward, his steel eyes fierce.   
  
"I'll come back for him later, then," he purred softly. But he never managed to activate his teleporter.  
  
Reggae, twin blades a neon red limned with white, hacked into the Maverick from behind, an emerald blur slashed with crimson and silver. He whipped a leg underneath of Zero, taking the Maverick off his feet  
  
"And THAT is for making a mess of my ward!" he said with a sharp nod, stamping down on Zero's wrists to keep him from his beamsaber as the Hunters came into the room.  
  
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X heard all the commotion out in the hall, boredly twiddling his thumbs. His door was locked, and his armor was stashed away somewhere unknown, so there was nothing he could do, not even when the alarm shrieked out that there was a Maverick loose in the base.  
  
He paced the room, like an over-sterilized cell, severely annoyed with the whole of the medical staff. He hadn't been released yet, but why not? Of course, they'd never tell HIM.  
  
After a while, things died down, returning to the usual sound of a medical ward. X sighed. The constant, hushed clinking of bits and bobs being carted everywhichway was going to drive him mad.  
  
Then his head started to hurt.  
  
It was just a dull ache, probably born of frustration, but for some reason that bothered X. He didn't normally get headaches for anything short of downright exhaustion. Nontheless, he dismissed it and continued pacing, waiting for someone to show up and tell him what the heck was going on.  
  
"...out...let...me..." it was a vague, tiny whisper, nearly lost in amidst X's thoughts. He stopped, looking about in confusion.  
  
"Wha?" he questioned the empty room.  
  
"...want...out...let-me-out...now...let..." X hunted through all the corners, effectively leaving no stone unturned, but there simply was no possible source for the whispering. His headache twanged stronger, and he grumbled. Did someone think this was a funny joke?  
  
"...let-me-out...I-want-out-now...get-me-out!" the whisper came again, starting to sound urgent. X was completely baffeled. And then the voice changed from an urgent whisper to a panicked, mad, ceaseless jibbering.  
  
"Get-me-out-oh-please-let-me-out-I-know-you-hear-me-LISTEN-TO-ME-LET-ME-OUT-OF-HERE-NOW!" X tripped over his own feet, stumbling, putting a hand to his ringing head. It was the voice that was making his headache stronger, shouting like that.  
  
"Stop it! Go away!" X snarled, shaking his head.  
  
"NO! LET-ME-OUT-GOTTA-GET-OUT-OUT-RIGHT-NOW-LET-ME-OUT!!" the voice responded. X couldn't even see straight from all its screaming.  
  
"Where are you? WHO are you? And why--HOW--are you in my head?" he growled. Then the voice went silent for a short while, before picking up again in a crazed murmur.  
  
"...dark-cold-and-dark-stone-and-metal-and-bars-no-light-no-sun-no-moon-dark-cell..." it hissed. X blinked.  
  
"You're in a cell?..."  
  
"Yes-yes-prisoner-must-be-free..."  
  
"Well WHO are you?"  
  
This question brought it up short again.  
  
"...blood...ice...fire...pain...screaming...gold...killing...black...gold...blood..." it mumbled finally. X sighed. 'I'mn just going crazy,' he thought. 'Of course they wouldn't tell me if they found out I was crazy, and they wouldn't let me go...'  
  
"Not-crazy-I'm-REAL-REAL-REAL-DANG-YOU-REAL!!!" the voice screeched, making X stumble again. "You-won't-listen-I'm-real-you-won't-let-me-out-I'd-KILL-YOU-but-I-have-to-get-out...YOU'LL-LET-ME-OUT-NOW!" And X blacked out. When his mind and sight returned, he felt like his head had been frozen, and he staggered numbly towards the door. What was he doing? He had no idea, but he had to. He HAD to, and fast, or something very bad would happen.  
  
The door was locked still, but in the end a reploid is stronger than a medical room door. He kicked it loose on its hinges and stumbled out, his coordination slowly returning but his purpose still unknown.  
  
"X!" said a medic in the hall, her dark eyes widening in surprise. "You haven't been released yet! What are you doing?" He ignored her, striding past, intent on whatever he was supposed to do. No one really tried very hard to stop him; their confused looks and questions went unanswered. None of them actually knew WHY X wasn't released yet. No resistance, until Reggae spotted him.  
  
"X? I thought I had that door locked," the mantis reploid said slowly. X ignored him, walking steadily onward. Reggae smoothly stepped in front of him. "Where d'you think you're going? I haven't released you yet." X blinked, trying to step around the head medic, but Reggae would not let him past.  
  
"...don't know..." he mumbled at last. The compulsion to GO seemed to be absorbing most of his concentration; he wasn't very articulate. Something about Reggae's eyes bothered him...the color. They were gold. A bright, burnished gold. Gold...X shook his head, trying to shake away a sudden, strange image that flickered in his mind's eye. Something black, a thin band of gold wound around one edge. Hard and metallic. Armor?  
  
Reggae had one slender finger ready to click on his com, and his other arm was held at a careful distance from his body--the way he held it to make sure that, should he need them, he would not be in danger of accidentally hacking himself apart with his arm-mounted beam sabers.  
  
"Alright, X, if you don't know, maybe you should just go back to your room? I promise that whatever it is you were heading to do, I'll take care of it for you." The Blue Hunter, however, did indeed notice the fact that Reggae was using an unusually gentle voice, like trying to soothe a wild animal.  
  
"Reggae," he said, his mind suddenly clearing with this thought, "why haven't I been dismissed yet? What's keeping you?" The mantis's expression became pained.  
  
"X...well...yeah. We need to talk." 


	5. Chapter 5: Belonging Lost

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 5:  
  
Belonging Lost  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: WE ARE DOING GOOD YES CAPPITAN!!! All Powah to Yammy, Crystalstorm21, and "more!" for being wonderful and reviewing!   
  
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Reggae tapped his fingers together, his antennae twitching. He had no intention to lie to X, but he would have to word it carefully to avoid getting the reploid angry at him for not having told him sooner.  
  
"I'm going to be blunt, but don't try doing anything stupid. You're being kept here to avoid you hurting anyone or being hurt. Bloodrush hasn't been dragging you off from battlefields for no reason. You're now the carrier of a mutation of the Maverick virus, which, supposedly, allows Bloodrush to influence your actions," the mantis said at last. X was silent.  
  
"...so I'm Maverick...or something like it?" he said finally, suddenly sounding like a helpless little boy, his eyes bright with fear. Reggae just nodded.  
  
"As of yet, only Dio, you, me, and Dnia know this. But...something will have to be done, and I'm sure you know that. It may seem cruel, but you can't be allowed to stay here. I'll do all I can to help you out here, X, but in the end...it's just too dangerous." The mantis's voice was defeated and bitter. X stared off into space, leaning against the wall, then asked a seemingly inane question.  
  
"Bloodrush was here, right?"  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"And he was subdued, right?"  
  
"Yes, he was."  
  
"What did you do with him?"  
  
"He was thrown into some cell somewhere in the dark under a teleportation frequency lock. I think Dio plans to remove that Maverick's head himself, but everyone's a bit nervous about getting close. That demon's been making quite a bit of a racket since he woke up, and hasn't made sense yet." X's expression went totally blank.  
  
"Did he say anything about black and gold?" the Hunter asked, his hands unconsciously gripping at the bedsheets under him. Reggae considered, then shrugged.  
  
"I don't know, I didn't go down there to listen to him, and no one's going to relay any ranting nonsense to me...why?" he looked suspiciously at X, whose complexion paled, and his mouth twisted as though he were about to be sick.  
  
"So that's who was talking in my head."  
  
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"Bloodrush was last headed for the Maverick Hunter Headquarters," Aerthin Dorackin IV, a pearl-scaled dragon Maverick with ornate silver armor, stated to Sigma. Her orange eyes were flat and dead-looking, just as was her blank voice. She bowed her way out of the room without waiting for Sigma to respond, meandering down the hall, her black talons clicking and snicking against the metal floor.  
  
"Intrigue and chaos follows in your wake, Bloodrush," she said softly. "Just how equipped ARE you to handle it all?"  
  
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He had long since given up arguing with the darkness; it was not going to lift just because he ordered it to. Frustration made him pace back and forth, and once again he cursed the Hunters for having stolen away his beamsaber. He didn't think that it might have cut him free--his only concern now was the endless dark. Black, black, black. It brought back memories he thought he had buried forever; but X had dug them up, that wretched little blue reploid, it was all his fault.  
  
'...shaking-me-away-again-Bloodrush? I'm-awake-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it...ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...' Zero just snarled. 'Aren't-you-proud-Bloodrush? Aren't-you-proud-of-what-you've-done? Or-isn't-it-fun-anymore? You-have-a-reputation-to-maintain...'  
  
'SHUT UP. You know Bloodrush isn't my name.'  
  
'Is-Bloodrush-mad-now? Huh? Well-that's-just-too-bad. Your-name-is-Bloodrush-now. It-has-been-forever. Zero's-been-dead-a-long-time-hasn't-he. You-know-it-but-you-won't-admit-it. You-killed-him-MONSTER. HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.'  
  
'STOP IT! I AM ZERO! I WAS MADE TO BE ZERO!'  
  
'Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...'  
  
As the maniac voice receded, Zero considered his options for escape, pushing away all his anger and frustration. He had only a very limited amount of time at his disposal; who knew how soon the Hunters would come to destroy him?  
  
His armor had been snatched away, and a frequency jam made teleportation too dangerous to attempt--if he forced a 'port, he might arrive at his destination in a million pieces. He studied the bars and walls, getting very close so he could even see them. He wasn't much for a stalking reploid, and his nightvision was poor. The stone and metal looked normal enough at a casual glance, but as he put his hand against the wall, the texture was wrong. It was an absorber. Any energy weapons thrown at it, unless powerful to take apart a city block, would simply vanish into its surface and be turned into heat. And while he was considerably strong, these cells were meant to withstand the thrashings of even the biggest reploids that might chance to find themselves in them.  
  
The only real option, then, would be to get X to free him. And his previous had been disgraceful--at the time, he had been knocked senseless from being pitched head-first into the endless blackness of the cell, and he hadn't known how badly the frequency jammer would scrambled his messages. The lack of clarity led to lack of influence, and the moment something managed to distract X, the command was erased without a second thought. Zero would have to concentrate VERY hard to get through, this time.  
  
'X!' he called out, the frequency pattern attuned to that of the mutant virus X harbored. The frequency jam crackled loudly in his head, spawning a bitter headache which he ignored.  
  
'Let-me-out!' The virus wasn't really possessing of any sort of intelligence, and would automatically take any pause in the flow of wards as a cessation of the message, which would turn the command into some strange puzzle.  
  
___________________  
  
X blinked suddenly and shook his hea. He had been alone, locked into this room, for a while now. Reggae was going to consult with Dio, and the medics outside were alerted that he was not to be permitted outside of his room.  
  
'X!' it was a call to attention, and the blue reploid's eyes widened, a choker collar of fear and anger winding itself snuggly around his gut.  
  
'Let-me-out!' A heavy, headache-inducing static accompanied the command, but X could feel his eyes unfocusing and his nerves losing feeling dispite the lack of reception. Gritting his teeth, he shook his head.  
  
'Go away!' But his demand was not heeded.  
  
'GET-DOWN-HERE!' came the order, and X staggered to his feet, his vision blurring and his limbs numb. He recognized, this time, the overwhelming compulsion to go, that something was urgent and must be done even though he had no idea what, but he couldn't stop. Shaking, fighting every step, he was headed for the door. As the command cemented itself in his mind, his objects lost force, as he began to forget what he was fighting for.  
  
The door took a great battering this time, as it had been reinforced doubly, but it fell soon enough. the medics outside, however, were there to stop him.  
  
X growled, lost in the urgency of his purpose, trying to shove past the restraining medics, jumping over one group to land and be bogged down by the next. Orders were being shouted all over the place by Law, who clung to the ceiling overhead, and X grew angry at the obstacles. the virus in his system, bending him entirely to obeying Zero's command, fueled itself with its host's anger, and it planted an idea in X's head; they were getting in the way, just like the door, and what had he done with the door?  
  
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Reggae was just returning from speaking to Dio when he froze in his tracks. The air smelled like burning flesh and metal, and an acrid, chemical undertone. It was with a sense of dread spreading queasily throughout him that he ran the rest of the way down, and peered into the main hall of his domain. Into a seen of disastor.  
  
Everywhere. Everything had been burned, chemical-born fires still eating away merrily at a few things--some of which may once have been living. Indescernable fragments made up the majority of the population of the room, and those who were alive ground pitifully on the floor. Reggae, feeling like acid ran through his wires rather than reploid blood, looked to the alarm button on the wall. The wall above it had been punched clean through by some metal object thrown at it, severing the wires and making it useless. He doubled back, his steps over-careful as though he didn't trust himself, and hammered the next alarm he found. A siren began wailing throughout the base, and the head medic returned to his destroyed domain. He knew he would have to find out what had happened here from someone who was still aware of his surroundings. But for the moment, the mantis crumpled to the floor and cried.  
  
"What happened?" he asked, his voice still slightly hoarse. The reploid he asked the question of wasn't in the greatest shape, but she appeared to escaped the most of the damage.  
  
"X...got outta room...tried t'stop him...'n he start'd t'fight'n'...had him o'erwhelm'd...'en he grab'd sumth'n' 'splosive outta som'ere...an' he chuck'd it at Law..." Reggae looked up, staring down the opposite hallway. The one leading towards the cells.  
  
"Bloodrush."  
  
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The guards were bored, one drifting off to sleep and the other staring intently into his cup of coffee as though it might contain answers to important questions, such as when his shift was over. They weren't expecting a certain unarmed, char-and-blood spattered, wild-eyed reploid to drop suddonly down between them and, with two swift strikes, send the pair of them staggering into the wall. And not stop there.  
  
The alarm's bitter screaming came moments too late for the guards as they poured their lifeblood onto the cold metallic floor, and X was nearly to his destination, the cell keys jangling in his hand.  
  
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"Good boy, X," Zero purred, as though praising an obediant pet. "You got the keys?"  
  
The reploid, fully under the saw of Zero's mutant virus, tossed the precious metallic objects through the bars. The Maverick hunted along the ring, finally discovering one that looked about right.  
  
He had to try several keys before the door to the cell clicked open, and did not fail to notice as the vicious glare in X's eyes--made especially wicked by the harsh light of the flashlight he had in his hand--slowly ebbed away. With his task essentially completed, the command that had driven him down into the darkness was erased as though it had never been. And the moment X's mind returned to his own control, he fell backwards with some sort of weird noise that may have been a strangled scream, dropping the flashlight, which shattered, its light lost. Zero grinned maliciously as he swung open the door.  
  
"What will you do now...Maverick?" the blonde reploid asked, his voice silky. X just stared off into space, shaking. But Zero allowed him no time for his horror.  
  
"We have to get our armor before we can get outta here," he said, dragging the limp-limbed X off the ground. He struck the unresponsive reploid across the face.  
  
"Get moving!" X staggered clumsily along the hallway, and stopped altogether when a light came to life before him.  
  
"Cease, Mavericks!" roared the reploid in possession of the floodlight, a whole unit visible behind him in the cramped hall. Zero snickered.  
  
"Fight!" he shrieked, leaping over X's head and scuttling across the ceiling as his momentum held him against gravity, then falling and barrelling straight into the armed forces. He kicked the floodlight out of the leader's hands, then snapped his arm across the reploid's shoulder, as the lamp struck the ground and exploded into a shower of glass in the darkness.   
  
X, with his adept nightvision, watched dumbly as Zero battered the Leader out of the way, saw the Maverick spin with a snarl as he was struck by a buster shot, saw him retaliate by slugging the offending shooter across the face. Then, X blinked slowly in surprise when Zero did something quite strange. His wrist twisted in upon itself, folding his hand outwards, a slender gun nozzle springing forth from the metal chamber that had been opened, flipping up and over the Maverick's hand to form an odd-looking buster. Few reploids were installed with weapons that were not built into their armor, but rather into their main physical structure. Such weapons were usually dangerous--they couldn't afford to be very powerful, because they drew on the reploid's own powersource, rather than from the seperate powercore that fueled the weapons/armor combos. Using such a weapon too much could incapacitate even a high-endurance reploid.  
  
The shots rang out, a sizzling, fluctuating sort of energy, that streaked like an ark of lightning between the nozzle and the target. The armor of the Hunters would glow suddenly, the almost electric-seeming energy racing along the metal plates, a paralyzing strike. Then the Red Maverick struck down the warriors.  
  
The battle had taken perhaps five minutes overall, and then Zero spotted, in the fierce, crackling glow of his last shot, the saber that had belonged to First Beamsaber. Sweeping it up off the ground in his left hand, he studied it, flicking it to life. It flared a deep orange in color, with blue streamers rushing now and again through the vaguely scimitar-esque blade. Deeming it suitable, he grinned, keeping his backup buster active. Being a reploid, and one designed specifically for intense combat, he was automatically ambidextrious, in other words, his right and his left were equally efficient, rather than having one hand dominant over the other.  
  
Then the second Squad appeared, and Zero grinned.   
  
It took Zero even less time than before to dispatch this second Squad, now that he had a beamsaber in hand. He cried out with vicious glee as he discovered that the First Buster, being a human, had a handheld weapon. He tossed the thing, a riffle-like affair, back to X, who caught it out of the air and proceeded to stare at it uncomprehendingly.  
  
"Snap OUT of it!" Zero screamed, turning to meet the next row of Hunters. In the small space, they couldn't do anything but line up and come at him one by one, and it swiftly became apparent that he could never be beaten that way.  
  
Zero got tired of X's inaction. In such close quarters, with the frequency jam left behind in the cell, he didn't even have to word his command. X's eyes went dark, their emerald shade deepening to near black, and he lifted the buster up, watching the fighting. When, for a moment, Zero danced towards a wall, X saw his chance. but he didn't fire at the Hunters.  
  
"What the-!" Zero's exclamation was cut off as the shot threw him against the wall. H edropped the saber, which deactivated as it fell and clattered away, and the Hunters closed in on him. He cursed viciously, his steel eyes casting about in the darkness as his voice reached a high, fevered pitch.   
  
"You'll pay for that!" the Maverick screeched, and vanished, teleporting away, armor or no. Then X crumpled to the floor, panting, sobbing, and unable to make his shaking limbs obey him.  
  
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"Not so cocky now, Bloodrush?" Sigma laughed. The Red Maverick glared wretchedly at him.  
  
"Just find me some spare armor and a saber," he growled. Sigma laughed again. He was immensly enjoying seeing the viccious warrior reduced to begging for scraps because he messed up.  
  
"You were too confident, Bloodrush, just waltzing into the Hunter HQ like that. And why didn't you ever tell me you could crack through their scrambler?"  
  
"Because you never asked," Zero spat. Then he turned on his heel and walked out.  
  
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There really wasn't any sort of thinking to be done. There was only a single fate for the Hunter-turned-Maverick. But everyone wanted to hang back, delay the inevitable. Everyone save for the focus of it all, who refused to move, huddled and shaking. He hadn't spoken a word, and his emerald eyes seemd blank and empty, lost in a memory of his own wretched deeds.  
  
"Nothing to be done," Prince hissed sadly into the silence. Kariss wasn't even there. Dio's expression seemed ill. As the current General, the ultimate decision was his own, and it was a decision he wasn't sure he could make. Had there been anything save that unnatural lifelessness in the blue reploid's eyes, he might not have been able to say it. But the HQ came before the individual, and so X's fate was sealed. Dio didn't even have to say anything; the others present all knew that, were he forced to speak the command aloud, he might refuse, in the face of everything. But as it was, the word was whispered without speech throughout the meeting. "Dissassembly."   
  
X finally raised his head, and his were strange, a flat, dead black that lacked luster or the spark of intelligence. But as the final decision was so silently made, a green flame burst up inside them. He had nothing left to hold on to. His ideals were fogged by a wash of blood and a violent haze born of the aggressive virus within him. His friends could not help him, were powerless to stop themselves from turning their backs on him. He suddenly got a strange impression of himself; a tired old dog, no longer safe to handle, would be put down, maybe with a few teary eyes. All that was left for this dog, then, was the fighting. He knew that it was, in part, the virus feeding him vicious suggestions. But survival instinct also told him that he could not simply give himself over to death.   
  
A pair of guards approached, to drag him off to his final destination. But the tiny smile on his face made them pause.  
  
"Try it," he whispered, before exploding into motion. His wrists and ankles were bound, but that didn't stop him, as he launched himself like a missile, taking the first guard off his feet. The second met with a sudden uppercut from X's fists, and he doubled over, hacking, his arms wound around his aching gut. The blue reploid, smaller than both and more agile, rolled himself to his feet behind them, and turned for a second go. He needed some way to free his ankles, at least, or he wouldn't make it very far. 


	6. Chapter 6: Felling the Lion

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 6:  
  
Felling the Lion  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Yay for "moremore!", Crystalstorm21, and MooMoo, wunnerfull reviewers! Also, to "moremore!", who's begging for the pairings--all in due time, my friend, and if I'm able to write it safely (I'd be killed if anyone of my family discovered me writing such a thing! Sigh.)  
  
Also, for my own amusement, I doodled a picture of Aerthin Dorackin the first. It's right here: http://www.boomspeed.com/psychodragon/Aerthin.png so check it out.  
  
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"Interesting," mused Aerthin Dorackin IV. Her voice and eyes were flat and metallic, but Zero could tell that somewhere under that blank shell was a flare of rebellious intelligence. While all Aerthin Dorackins secretely--or sometimes not so secretely--despised Sigma, IV was actually intelligent enough to be considered valuable. She was wind element, making her rather useless at indoor combat but deadly anywhere with weather.  
  
At the moment, she was mulling over what Zero had told her. It was quite a tricky little game, but considering that the Red Maverick's armor and weapon were currently somewhere in MHHQ, it might be neccissary. On the other hand, she was almost certain to be destroyed in this plan. But now that Zero had confided in her, she was certain not to leave this room alive unless she agreed to help.  
  
"Alright then. I will help you retrieve your equipment," she said at last. Zero grinned.  
  
"I thought so."  
  
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He considered just teleporting, but he realized with vexation that he had never bothered to memorize any codes. He usually just used the Gates, like the majority of Hunters--the Gates avoided having Hunters appearing and dissappearing all over the place, and it was easy to simply use them all the time. Teleportation codes were a bother--huge strings of numbers for frequencies, destinations, and buffers to make sure you didn't run into someone else and cause the biggest explosion this side of a nuklear warhead--and few people actually memorized the things.  
  
The only one he actually knew was the buffer, frequency, and point for the Gate Center, and that wouldn't help him much now--in the alarm for Maverick loose in the base, the Gates were automatically shut down.  
  
But as it turned out, someone opened a door for him.  
  
The wall was crunched suddenly inwards not too far up ahead, and X, hidden for the moment to await more approaching Hunters, watched with interest as the metal bubbled up like blown glass before shattering, shards of metal flinging about insanely on an inwards burst of super-pressurized wind. The air twisted itself into a mini-tornado that barreled cheerily down the corridor for a ways before losing strength and fading. Hunters were rushing about, trying to find X and secure the breach, when another blast of wind swept them clean of the entrance, followed by the firing of a cannon-type buster that lobbed huge orbs of angry gren energy into the halls.  
  
X already knew who was out there, but that would likely be his only chance to escape from the HQ. Grabbing his breath in his throat, hoping he wouldn't simply be torn into pieces by whatever attack came next, he made a run for the great hole in the wall.  
  
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Zero saw the movement from his lofty vantage point, straddling Aerth's serpentine neck, one hand gripping the base of an antler to keep himself steady as he fired the bazooka-esque buster, which had quite a kickback. He swung the weapon down, prepared to blow the Hunter to pieces, when he recognized who it was that skipped and stumbled awkwardly down the rubble, trying to stay hidden. X, his indigo shirt in tatters and his jeans missing one leg entirely, the other hanging in jagged rags, was not quite recognizable as the Blue Hunter anymore. Zero snickered.  
  
"Aer, why don't you pick up our little friend? He'll know where they've stashed my stuff," he purred, his eyes wicked. Aerthin pounced forwards, claws scrabbling and shrieking against the rubble, and snatched X up off the ground with her teeth.  
  
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He was too shocked to actually struggle much at first--one second he had been skittering down a hill of metal and stone, avoiding eye contact with the great dragon-reploid standing aways off, the next he was snagged into the air, said dragon's hot breath flapping through the holes in his shirt.  
  
A moment later he planted his hands against the jaws, the since-severed bindings dangling amongst the vicious fangs, and heaved with all his strength, forcing her maw open. But when he dropped down, one of those wretched wrist bindings got caught between two teeth, and his fall to the ground was halted with a metallic snap of protost as it jerked his arm painfully out of place.  
  
"Don't you bother running around, X," called a voice from above. "I told you you'd pay for stabbing me in the back, but first I need my stuff. Where is it?"  
  
"I don't know," X growled in response, wrapping his free hand around his trapped one and using it to pull himself up enough to tug at the biding. Aerthin simply closed her jaws on his hand, and he stifled a screech. Zero hummed thoughtfully, swinging his legs back and forth. He fired another shot from his cannon, this time aimed at the hangar, which was beginning to open.  
  
"Aerthin, drop him. Take out the hangar," Zero commanded, and the dragon immidiately obeyed, throwing X to the ground and putting a claw on top of him. The she inhaled deeply, the plates of her armor creaking, and blew.  
  
It wasn't really just her breath that caused the sudden funnel of super-pressurized air to smash into the half-open door of the hangar, but that initialized it, and so the first ride armor to attempt to emerge was smashed over onto its back, the metal buckling inwards. The dragon wouldn't be capable of fighting off many more, though. She was wearing her battle-power thin.  
  
"Bloodrush, we must finish this quickly," she said hollowly. Zero sighed, then nearly fell off as Aerthin lept to one side, dragging X along in her talons, as a grenade-charge blasted a crater in the ground.  
  
"Tell me, X, why you don't want me to get my armor. Is it for the Hunters? Even though they tried to destroy you. Or...are you afraid of me, eh?" the Red Maverick purred, leaning over to stare down at X, who looked slightly dazed but still snarled angrily.  
  
"Fine. I'll get through anyway..." Zero hissed. The Hunters, their forces weakened by a steady stream of catastrophes and moral almost nonexistant, were putting up a valiant fight nontheless, and it was likely they would have one against the two lone Mavericks...had Zero not still had an ace up his sleeve.  
  
He plucked an innocent-looking spherical device from the holster where normally his saber abided, running his fingers accross the smooth surface until he found a slight ridge. He twisted the hatch open, and threw it underhand to land silently near the door to the hangar.  
  
"Three...two...one...boom."  
  
Boom indeed.  
  
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Dio hauled himself up from the mess of a speeder. The lightweight, thin-framed, motorcyclish device had been torn nearly in half, but Dio had managed to unhook his boots from the thing to avoid joining it in its fate. He was just digging his helmet out of the wreck when a flash of neon orange light assaulted him through the half-open hangar door, temporarily blinding him. Then the shockwave hit, buckling in the door, ripping it free and tossing it gleefully back amongst the ride armors. The ground protested loudly as it shuddered and sank, tearing apart the foundations of the hangar. The entire room jerked downwards further into the earth, threatening to collapse.  
  
"Out! Out! Out!" Dio called above the shrieking of the metal walls, the bone-breaking sound of the earth shredding into slivers.  
  
He herded all the Hunters he spotted towards the door leading into the base, his hand ready to come down on the emergency switch--it would lock off and actually seperate the hangar from the rest of the base, which would hopefully keep the entire HQ from coming down.  
  
A chunk of ceiling fell down on a speeder, and the mashed device burst into flames as the various chemicals in its tanks met each other on common ground. Dio shouted the evaccuation orders again, above the roaring that filled the air, both from the cheerfully crackling chemical fire and the pieces of ceiling coming down. Finally, he could wait no longer. The dust and smoke in the room made certain he had no idea if anyone was still in there, but if he didn't get it sealed now, there would be too much danger of the destruction spreading. He brought his hand down hard on the emergency seal, glass exploding off it and sticking unpleasently anywhere his gauntlet offered purchase. The room shrieked a warning that it was shutting itself off, and Dio rushed madly towards the door, which a metallic plate was folding itself down to cover.  
  
He charged through, down the hall beyond, and skittered under a second metal veil that was sliding shut. He had made it out of there alive, at least.  
  
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Zero laughed wildly as the hangar folded in on itself, flames springing up and being smothered swiftly by rubble, filling the air around it with a heavy cloud of smoke.  
  
"Take that, Hunters!" the Maverick cackled.  
  
'You-still-get-your-kicks-this-way-Bloodrush? I-thought-only-living-things-being-smashed-was-fun-anymore,' the grating, gravelly voice said suddenly. Zero snarled at it.  
  
'Go away. I'm busy.'  
  
'I-don't-feel-like-it.'  
  
'Why can't you just STAY DEAD?!'  
  
'I-don't-feel-like-it! I-won't-allow-you-the-satisfaction-traitor.' As it spoke, a threat of a memory imaged itself vaguely in Zero's mind'seye--black and gold gleaming under a harsh laboratory light...  
  
'Don't you dare! Not now!' Zero shrieked. Aerthin said something, but he wasn't paying attention. She would have to handle it herself, whatever it was.  
  
'And-what-about-your-new-friend? X-is-it? When-do-I-get-to-meet-him?'  
  
'Go away,' Zero spat. The gravelly, low-key voice laughed.  
  
'Not-until-I-get-back-what's-mine.'  
  
'You can't have your body back, lunatic. It's smashed into a million pieces somewhere on the bottom of the ocean.'  
  
'Yeah-because-you-put-it-there. I-should-make-you-get-it-back-out-and-fix-it.'  
  
'I'd like to see you try. You're nothing but a worn-out old program.'  
  
'What-makes-a-reploid-so-special?' the voice suddenly asked. 'A-butcher-cut-mind-and-emotions-that-mess-with-your-thoughts? Emotions. Hah. What-would-you-call-me? I-could-think-with-emotions. Most-of-us-could. And-I-had-as-much-free-will-as-I-wanted...' its musings were continuously threatening to drag up memories to the surface of Zero's murky mind; the Maverick beat each one away ruthlessly, and the maniac voice was gone.  
  
Zero was recalled to reality fully when Aerthin leaped, nearly sending him toppling off. He snatched up a handful of black mane, and held tight to his buster-cannon.  
  
_________________________  
  
X was feeling a bit battered. His head was ringing--and was bebugged pictures that didn't belong to him, black and gold--his left hand was crunched, and the breath had been knocked out of him more than once as the dragon leaped about.  
  
And Zero still wanted to know where his armor was. The virus lurking around in X knew it, and was trying to get the blue reploid to go along with him--it kept reminding him that his own armor would be hidden in the same place, his precious, much-repaired sapphire armor. X knew his resolve was giving out, but he was determined to fight to the last.  
  
Alas, that wasn't long once Zero prodded at him, having climbed down Aerthin's thin arm, and was studying him intently, steel eyes gleaming. X felt almost sick, gritting his teeth to keep himself from spilling out every bit he knew of where the weapons and armor might be kept.  
  
"Where?" was all Zero hissed, and X's will shattered.  
  
"Captured weapons...kept in armory...3-A...southern wing..." he said thickly. Zero grinned.  
  
"Thank you very much. Well, Aerthin, time for your final duty..." he purred. The dragon twisted her head to stare at him, her eyes blank.  
  
"Final duty?" she asked, her flat voice hinting at suspicion. The Red Maverick simply grinned, jumping off.  
  
"Drop X," he commanded, and she did, letting the reploid fall to the ground with a thunk and a groan. "And now...go straight for center base. Knock a hole in the ceiling. As soon as you're inside, nothing else matters. You've got ten minutes." Aerthin lurched, and her blank voice was suddenly thick and hot with rage.  
  
"I should have known! You turned me into a walking warhead!" she roared, and yet still she obeyed the Red Maverick. The idea of simply pinning him and taking him with her never even occured to her.   
  
She leapt onto the ceiling, the remaining defense turrets that hadn't been mangled by her wind attacks smashing to bits under her bulk even as they tried to fire. She ran on, her armor reflecting the majority of the shots fired--a spear of energy lanced straight through her neck plates, but still she ran, her head hanging, almost dragging on the ground, a river of blackish blood rushing down her chest armor to paint the roof. Finally, she crumpled forward, smashing herself against the ceiling, firing a burst of high-pressured air, the kickback shoving her across the roof as it tore it open. Then she vanished in, and the tenth minute struck.  
  
Zero's previous charge, the one he had thrown at the hangar, had been a small one. But the one hidden within Aerthin's armor was five times its size.  
  
Zero didn't wait for the bang. Grabbing X, he teleported away. 


	7. Chapter 7: Double Edged Blade

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 7:  
  
Double-Edged Blade  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Powah Mazterfull to Seiyaru, who I missed last time 'cuz ff.net didn't tell me in my e-mail alert! Sorry Seiyaru! Also, more Powah to Crystalstorm21, "yay! yay!", and Yammy!  
  
Also, my little invented techniques for the twinsaber are kinda weird. Just go with it.  
  
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He slid easily into the base in all the confusion. No one was keeping tabs on activity, after all--they were too busy trying to salvage what they could from the demolished halls of the HQ.   
  
His scales shifted colors as he calmly walked along the wall. A ripple of distortion in the air was all he appeared to be--like the wavering effects of heat rising off of the road. His large, round eyes rolled about endlessly, keeping tabs on everything about him. His name was Sting Chameleon, and he was on a mission, sent by Bloodrush.  
  
The Red Maverick had charged abruptly into Sting's room, a spike-lined affair with jungle vines hanging about at random.   
  
"STING!! I know you're in here," he had shouted, looking around for the slight blur that would indicate the chameleon-based Maverick's presence. Sting had dropped down nimbly to the floor, his barbed tail twitching nervously.  
  
"Yessir?" he had asked in his rolling, almost bird-chirp voice.  
  
"I want you to go into the MHHQ. You won't have any trouble, believe me. You're going to get back my armor and saber...and X's armor. You should know what it looks like," the Red Maverick had purred, and walked away. Sting, though he really didn't like it, wasn't about to make Bloodrush angry, and so he had went.  
  
Now, he was mentally snickering with contempt at the disorganized mess in the Hunter base. Very shortly, he was into armory 3-A, flicking his tongue thoughtfully as he scanned the shelves of equipment. X's armor was easily enough found. It was sitting in plain view, the plates stacked carelessly on a shelf, gleaming sapphire in the dim light. But Bloodrush's battlegear must have been hidden away in a box or a drawer.  
  
"Ssssssssssss..." the chameleon hissed without meaning to, going through boxes and drawers and closets of equipment. It wasn't until he came to a metallic safe, locked securely, that he knew he had found the crimson gear. Twisting his tail over his shoulder, he forced the lock with a metal barb, and the red armor spilled onto the floor, followed by an unignited saber. Sting giggled, gathering up everything in his arms, and, with a rolling burble, teleported.  
  
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Sigma was not merely wary anymore; he was literally shaking in his boots from terror. Bloodrush was performing the impossible left and right.  
  
"Go and bring Bloodrush," he said at last to the Maverick standing casually just outside the door. Aerthin Dorackin, the fifth, raised her vibrantly purple head, her acid-green eyes and mane catching the light. Her antlers were vivid copper, as was her armor.   
  
"Mmyessir!" she barked, bowing her serpentine neck--conveniently hiding the disgust that echoed loudly in her eyes--before charging away down the hall.  
  
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Zero had been sitting just in the doorway to his room, listening with an odd sort of curiousity to X, who was huddled up against the wall behind him, trying in vain to stifle his sobs. The former Hunter had spent the three hours since his "capture" crying, though he did make a valiant effort not to whenever he thought someone might be looking.   
  
The sound was overridden when the new Aerthin Dorackin, this one empowered with electricity, came stomping loudly down the hall, snarling a great many highly uncomplemental things about Sigma. She stopped when she spotted Zero, tilted her head to him in some vague gesture of respect, and, as though unaware of the reputation belonging to the Maverick she was dealing with, plucked him right off the ground with her talons.  
  
"Mr. Clean demands yer presence," she said, eyeing his saber, which was half an inch away from jabbing straight through her skull. "Don't ye be pokin' me with that thing, now." Instead, Zero pried her talons off of him and clumped ahead of her, his heavy boots ringing in the halls.  
  
"Any particular reason he's called me?" Zero asked, silkily. Aerthin, showing an unusual amount of attentiveness for her lineage, grinned and replied,  
  
"He's terrified an' he wants to try an' convince himself he's still got some reign on ye." Zero snickered, then glanced back. Aerthin Dorackin V's eyes were like no other of her line, not blank or vacant like III and IV, or overly arrogant like I or II's had been. Her eyes held, at the moment, a sort of sardonic amusement coupled with annoyance. And, most importantly, intelligence. Intelligence in a Dorackin could be an extremely dangerous thing.  
  
Sigma's thick fingers drummed noisily on the armrest of his lawnchair--er, throne.  
  
"Bloodrush. You have been handing out orders to my Mavericks as of late, without any word to me. Sending Sting into the middle fo teh Hunter base, turning two of the Dorackins to kamikaze units? Are you mad?!" he roared. But Zero stared straight into his eyes.  
  
"Maybe. But maybe it's you. Is it?" he purred. "I detest you, Sigma. All this time you've had, sitting about, doing practically nothing. I even blew apart the Hunter base, leaving it a sitting duck, and all you can do is berate me like an old school teacher. What sort of a leader do you pretend to be, Sigma?" The bald-headed reploid was going steadily redder from rage, and his hands shook as they gripped his throne.  
  
"I will not be spoken to in such a manner!" Sigma roared, wild with fury. He threw his crimson cloak behind him and stood, drawing his beamsaber. Zero grinned and flipped his own out of its holster, the blade flaring viciously to life.  
  
SHKRRAK!!! Sparks flew in a wicked shower about them as their sabers connected, the two energy blades trying to repel one another. Zero smoothly folded his blade over Sigma's, even as he danced nimbly to one side, the tip of the sword biting into the Maverick Leader's shoulder, severing the binding of the cape, which fluttered under Sigma's feet like a great moth as he jumped back and away. Zero snatched the cape and yanked, unbalancing the taller reploid, and darted forward, his blade sweeping across viciously. Sigma parried, sparks crackling about them, and thrust his own blade forward, nicking at Zero's chest. The Red Maverick was away again, and now he leapt into the air, dragging his blade down to split the Maverick Leader in two. Sigma jumped clear and struck at Zero's flank, the tip of his blade carving a bright line in his side before the blonde reploid beat the saber away with his own. He rushed forward, his saber shrieking and slashing like a serpent's fang, drawing gashes and sparks as he forced Sigma, slowly, back towards the wall.  
  
Sigma's saber went spinning away, the blade deactivating as the hilt clattered loudly to the floor. Sigma looked up, panting, to stare wild-eyed at the crimson Maverick, who had his sword raised, about to plummet for the kill. Then Zero snroted loudly, and turned away, leaving the room.  
  
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'Well you've got to give in sometime...you can't change the past...' was it the virus, or him? X had been having a hard time telling the two apart as of late. The virus had been dwindling in potency, the longer it went silent between suggestions, the less force those suggestions had. But that was because it didn't need force. It had neatly nudged X's way of thinking, until he didn't know where his views stood anymore. He was lost, with nowhere to turn, save for the dark, bloody path that had crept before him. And as time wore on, he was horrified to realize he didn't mind that so much.  
  
Never before had X bothered to consider the viewpoint held by the Mavericks. Never had he bothered trying to learn anything about them. They killed humans, and that was terrible. For that, they had deserved to be destroyed. It was easy to shrug off the question of why, blaming it onthe virus. But it was more than that.  
  
Many of the Mavericks were just blindly insane. Life, thought, will, all held no value to them. They were little more than over complex weapons, weapons that knew how to hate but not why. But what about the others, the minority? He had met Sting Chameleon not long back.  
  
"Why do you all hate humans so badly?" X had asked. Sting considered, his bulbous red eyes twitching about.  
  
"I cannot speak for all of us," the chameleon said at last. "But I myself know it is not because I like the taste of their blood, as Sigma does, nor the thrill of the battle, as does Storm Eagle. I once heard the results of human research--that there are certain smells, smells of individual people or animals or objects, which some simply cannot stand. They cannot get over this smell, and it drives them to dislike the bearer. Thus they will hate the bearer of this smell. I cannot stand the smell of humans. And as long as there are humans, there will be human-smell."  
  
X could not, even in his newfound mindset, approve of Sting's choice to take action by becoming a Maverick. But he could at least, for once, recognize that the choice had been made for a reason.  
  
The blue reploid was distracted from his thoughts by the door sliding open, Zero striding in. As of yet, none of the Mavericks trusted X well enough to allow him quarters of his own, and so he was stuck sharing Zero's Spartan-style room, a fact that made him slightly nervous at times. He knew from experiance that Zero was a sleepwalker, and X would much rather NOT have to fend off the reploid from various undesirable activities--the most common being strangling.  
  
"Well, buddyboy, I've finally managed to find you a proper weapon," Zero purred, tossing a sleekly cylindrical object at him. It was a bronze-tinged-silver in color, with a pale blue streak running from one end to the other on both sides. It was a hollow device, with an indigo-blue jewel at each end for an activation button.  
  
"It's a saber," X said blankly. Zero nodded, a rare smile on his face.  
  
"Turn it on," he instructed. "Both ends." X pressed down on the two jewels, and the dual blades sprang to life, indigo blue with a whitish-aqua heart. A double edged sword.  
  
"Come on," Zero said then, turning back towards the door, "you can't expect to do anything with a saber until you've got some training under your belt."  
  
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The Maverick training hall was nothing like the highly-organized, shining spotless rooom back in MHHQ. The walls and floor were stained, and in some places slickly coated, with various reploid fluids, and bits of pieces of armor were scattered everywhere. A pair of Mavericks, one a huge rhino with a horn that spun like a drill bit, the other a dragonfly flipping over that horn nimbly, were sparring in one corner, and in another a rattlesnake reploid was practicing its aim by attempting to take out a flying robotic drone with throwing discs of energy.  
  
Zero took up a stance in the middle of the room, flaring his loyal lightningbolt to life, fitting his helmet over his head. X, having not dared to remove his armor as soon as Zero had seen fit to give it to him--after an endless period of the Red Maverick having his twisted "fun" as repayment for X shooting him in the back all that time back in the cell, which left jagged gouges all through the walls, floor, the ceiling, and X--was already suited up. Of course, he didn't really know how to use the twinblade saber he held, but he took a guess, basing it loosely off of Prince's wicked staff. Zero guffawed at him, and, with an unnatural amount of patience, corrected X's stance.  
  
"Most would be tempted to use a twinblade like this as a longstaff," he instructed, taking the saber and holding it before him. "But this is a one-handed weapon. Look, watch how it works." And he picked a bit of metal off the floor, chucking it at the rattlesnake Maverick, who whirled around with an angry hiss, prepared to fire his next disc for his aggressor's throat. But when he saw the offender was the Red Maverick, he jumped.  
  
"Sir?" the snake rasped, his voice like brittle grasses crumpling.  
  
"Fire off a few shots. I'm giving the new guy a rundown with a twinblade," he commanded silkily. The serpent reploid nodded, and fired, the whirling, frisbeeish energy whistling through the air towards Zero. At the very last moment, he flipped the twinsaber, and ricocheted the shot first off the bottom blade, sending it wildly upwards, then striking it again with the second beam, and it flew straight back towards the snake, who shrieked raggedly and leapt away.  
  
"Funfun," Zero said, before tossing his own saber to X. "You've seen this one enough to know a bit about it, at least. I'll show you how the twinblade works." X barely had time to activate Zero's saber before the Red Maverick descended upon him, lashing with the upper blade. X twisted the saber up to block, awkwardly, and suddenly the second blade was cutting in low, forcing him to leap away. Zero chased him all around the room, sparks flying, and X made sure to keep track of all the moves he pulled. Finally, the blue reploid stepped in something slippery on the floor, and his feet flew out from under him. He struck the floor with a CLANG, and his breath rushed from him. Zero laughed, deactivating the twinblade, and dropped it next to X. He then picked up his own saber, which had fallen and rolled away when X slipped, the blade guttering out.  
  
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"So..." X said slowly. For all the time they had been spending training, arguing, or just doing nothing, X didn't really know anything more about Zero than he had when he started. His skill with the twinblade was slowly improving, which he knew pleased Zero. The crimson Maverick was a lover of melee combat, and considered beamblades the only trul respectable weapon--X made sure not to mention that Zero's fighting style could be a bit less than respectable at times, saber or no.  
  
"Oh, this isn't going to be one of those chitchat things, is it?" the Red Maverick sighed. His armor was stacked neatly on the floor--save for his dash boots, which he never seemed to take off--and he had let his hair loose. He was laying facedown on his bed, one arm hanging limply off the side. "Well, can't say I have anything better to do. Wanna know something? Fire away."  
  
"Where do you come from?" X asked. No sense in beating around the bush. Zero was in a better mood today, at least--he didn't seem inclined to start screaming and chasing his roommate down the hall like he sometimes did.  
  
"Now isn't that a whopper of a quessie..." the blonde mumbled into his pillow. Then he turned his head to stare at X through a golden veil of hair. "How 'bout this: I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." X sighed. He had expected an answer somewhere along those lines.  
  
"Don't sound so forlorn. What good would knowing do you anyway? I say we watch a movie and forget about it. C'mon, I'll show you where I stashed the TV!" Zero leapt up, but X just stared blankly at him.  
  
"...movie?"  
  
"Oh please! Don't tell me you've never gotten to watch a movie! I tell you, MHHQ must be a boring place. No movies!" the reploid ranted, grabbing X by the shoulder and dragging him along.  
  
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It was definately a big TV. It took up almost the entire back wall of the room, and then shelves ffilled in around its sides and along the remaining walls. Shelves upon shelves of video archive units, VAUs, dusty-looking DVDs, even a collection of ancient VHS. Many were so old the labels had rotted off. Zero began digging, tossing things over his shoulder without a care.  
  
"Junk...junk...I can't believe this thing's in here..." CRASH every time he deemd something unworthy. "I swear, if this is Sigma's, I shall kill him DEAD!!!" More smashing. X, dodging flying objects, began looking through a shelf himself, curious. A great many of them had no labels, or labels worn blank by age, and some of the VHS didn't even have film inside.  
  
"Har!" was the warning shout as Zero chucked an uncased DVD at X's head. It ricocheted off his cranium with a loud, metallic PING, and the blue reploid gave his response of the form of an airborne empty tape shell. They had a brief war, throwing media at each other from across the room, until X happened to grab up a plain tape in a bright red case.  
  
"Don't throw that!" Zero barked, and X froze. He lowered his ammo and studied it.  
  
"What is it?" he asked. Zero frowned, trotting over to snatch it from him.  
  
"It's mine, forget about it," he replied, putting it up on the top shelf, too high for the somewhat-vertically-challenged X to reach.  
  
'Zero's certainly been telling me to forget alot as of late...' the blue reploid mused.  
  
'Don't-take-it-personally,' a low, grating, near-monotone voice replied. X blinked, looked about, and saw Zero staring straight at him.  
  
The blonde reploid said nothing. X said nothing. The two stared at each other blankly. X's emerald eyes were clouded with confusion, but Zero's...the steel-tone had an unnatural silvery sheen, as though he were feverish. His hand twitched, and then he snatched the offending appendage with his other, staring down as though unbelieving of something. Then, with a strangled shriek--that sounded almost nothing like his own voice, barely like any voice at all--he dashed out of the room. X blinked only once, staring after him.  
  
"Zero...? What...was...that...?"  
  
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The casualty list refused to stop escalating. Dio had the feeling that if he got one more bite of bad news, he might just crumple up and hide. It certainly was tempting.  
  
Akr was in the room one minute, gone the next, and back again. He wasn't really in a Squad at the moment--the majority of the units were missing more than half their members anyway. The chaos caused by that bombing would take forever to untangle!  
  
"Sir, can't you spare ANYONE to help me?!" an overtaxed, frantic Reggae asked. His voice was hoarse and crackling--he had been up for three days straight without even the briefest amount of rest, and he was running purely off reserves. Dio could tell the mantis reploid was about ready to drop where he stood. But there's was nothing to be done for it--the last of the Sub Tanks had been drained out yesterday.  
  
"I can spare Akr, but I don't know how much good he'll do," Dio said. The canine reploid blinked his wide brown eyes up from where he had stationed himself at the door to Dio's office. He had been slowly recovering his original state, but the bombing had knocked him back out of it entirely--he was very absent-minded and slow, now. Dio was beginning to suspect his chip had been damaged slightly.  
  
"I can't take this..." Reggae sighed and, as Dio had predicted, passed out from absolute exhaustion, falling forwards to land in a heap.  
  
"Akr, get Reggae to a recharger," Dio ordered. He repeated it three times, and finally the hound picked up the head medic and rushed out of the room.  
  
"I can't take this either. Wish I could just shut off," Dio sighed heavily. 


	8. Chapter 8: Silencer

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 8:  
  
Silencer  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Well, this thing's getting...uh...twisted. And I wrote X's big long dream/memory sequence for fun.   
  
Yay for reviewers, "yeah, yeah!" and Crystalstorm21!!  
  
Yes, this chapter is a little short. Don't worry, you won't die--I'm trying to make chapter 9 extra-long and fun to make up for it.  
  
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X was not looking forward to returning to his room. He had spent the rest of the day locked in a vicious sparring match with Scyc, the dragonfly Maverick, driving all fears and thoguhts from his mind as he focused entirely on the battle. But now he was returning back to his room, tired and aching, and he was afraid. What if Zero was out of his mind? The Red Maverick held no inhabitions against killing people on his side.  
  
Occasionally X had been able to forget that he was afraid of Zero. But now...he stopped just in front of the door, and gripped the hilt of his twinsaber tightly. He would never be as good with such a weapon as Zero, but for some reason, he was reluctant to give up on the weapon that had been a gift from the Red Maverick.  
  
The first thing that hit him when the door slid open was the smell of alchohol. The room was choked thickly in the acrid odor, and bits of shattered glass decorated the floor. X hadn't known Zero drank...  
  
He flipped on a light, and was rewarded with a low groan. Zero was curled up on his bed, and staring at X with reddened eyes. Definately drunk.  
  
"Hah...?" the blonde reploid said at last, pulling himself upright. He swayed unsteadily as he stood, leaning against the wall. "Wassup, X?"  
  
X decided it would be best to just not bother Zero. He didn't want to know the sort of things the Red Maverick might try while sodden with alchohol.  
  
"Just go to sleep, Zero," he said, climbing into his own bed, armor still on.  
  
"Ah...ahkay..." Zero mumbled, and toppled backwards onto the mattress. "G'night, shweety X..."  
  
'Sweety X?! Oy is he drunk!' X thought as he clicked off the light. He sighed once, lightly, as he slipped into a dream.  
  
_______________________  
  
It was dark, and cold, and lonely. How long had he been here, in this lightless place? He knew it must be a long time, but he couldn't really measure time. Until now, he had had no concept of time. Until now, he had been asleep, or entranced, or something of the like. Alive but not yet living, if that made any sense.  
  
He heard something from high above. A constant clink, clink, clink, and grating sounds and voices shouting. But he couldn't identify any of it--he had never heard such sounds before. Could he make sounds? Or was that something that belonged to those above, something he couldn't have? He had to know. But how did one make such sounds?  
  
Then there was light, just a tiny prick, and the sounds grew louder, more excited. He had never seen light before; this thing as alien to him, as strange as the sounds. It filtered down from above, mystifying him. He watched the thin shaft of light as it grew, marvelling at it.  
  
Suddenly everything was moving. The thing he was enclosed in, the place he had been held in since he began, was lifted up and out of its dark place, into a world of light.  
  
Strange things were everywhere. New colors, new sounds, new shapes. He blinked in confusion. What was this place?  
  
The voices were very excited. Now he saw that they belonged to the things before him, funny things with all different colors on their bodies and smiles on their faces. Were they nice? were they going to let him out of his prison? Or did they not like him, wanted to hurt him? Suddenly he became afraid.  
  
"Hello," said one of the things. He was wrinkly, with long, thick white-gray down his chest. But nothing on top of his head. That seemed funny. "Do you have a name?"  
  
He looked out from his place, staring at the talking things. 'Do I have a name?' The thought startled him. It was the first time he had thought with words. He knew those words, he realized. Somehow, he knew those words, but he couldn't quite grasp them.  
  
"Give it up, Cain. It can't understand you!" another thing laughed. The first thing, Cain, looked sharply at the second.  
  
"He can, I believe. But he has never spoken before!" Cain said.  
  
'I can speak...' the thought was decisive. 'I can speak, and I have a name.' But HOW did he speak? How did those things, Cain and the others, speak? They opened their mouths and made noises, and the noises had meaning.  
  
"I...can speak," he said at last. His own voice surprised him. It wasn't like the other things' voices. It was high and light, not like Cain's, which was thin and rough, or the second's, which was deep and rolling. It was his own. For some reason, that was impossibly important to him.  
  
"There, you see?" Cain huffed proudly. Then he turned his attention back to the capsule-bound. "Do you have a name?"  
  
"I have a name...But I can't remember..." he said. Suddenly, he was struck with a new impulse. "I want out."  
  
This brought all the things up short.  
  
"Should we let him out...?" whispered one.  
  
"...might be dangerous..." another was saying.  
  
But Cain simply watched the figure in the capsule.  
  
"He has his right to freedom," he said, and pressed his hand against a panel on the side of the capsule. The barrier around its contents faded, and he moved for the first time. But, like an infant trying to coordinate itself, he lacked any vestige of skill or grace. He staggered and fell on the ground, too unfamiliar with his own body to work it properly. Someone laughed, but Cain silenced them with a look.  
  
"He's been asleep for over 30 years," the wrinkly Cain said. "And he is entirely new to the world. A child, if you will." Then he walked over and helped the dark-haired person to his feet.  
  
"I remember my name now..." he said vaguely. He was still confused and dazed. "My name is X."  
  
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The blue reploid was snapped from his dream--his memory, really--when one side of his bed sank under an extra weight. He blinked at the light that was now on, and at Zero, who was sitting on the edge of the mattress, a silly, flushed grin on his face. His eyes were still sparkling and reddened from drink.  
  
"Zero? What?" X asked, trying to chase sleep from his head. It clung like matted cobwebs, making his thoughts foggy. Zero was sitting on his bed, grinning at him, and he had no idea what time it was. Wonderful.  
  
"Sssh," the red reploid said softly. Then he giggled, unnatural coming from him. "Dun worry. I already locked the door..." Sudden panic drove all grogginess from X's mind. Zero had locked the door?! The lock was programmed to open only for Zero or Sigma. He was effectively stuck in the room, with an unpredictable Zero.  
  
"Zero, just go back to sleep. Please?" he pleaded with the blonde, but all he got in response was a snort.  
  
"Silly X. I can't sleep. Bad dreams. Can I stay with you? I had a nightmare..." X could only stare. Zero was wearing an innocent child's expression, begging him. But it was marred by the flush in his cheeks, and the glimmer in his eyes.  
  
"Zero..." he hissed, unconsciously pushing himself further away under the covers, "Your bed's right across the room." The Red Maverick frowned.  
  
"But X..." he whined. X swallowed his fear, and put a stern bite in his voice.  
  
"Go back to your bed and go to sleep."  
  
The Red Maverick, horror and murderer of thousands, looked like he was about to cry. This wasn't good...  
  
"I don't want to," the blonde reploid sniffled, "I'll have another nightmare!"   
  
'Oh Zero, why'd you have to drink so much?!' X fumed inwardly. He couldn't stand to see the Maverick look so heartbroken, like a little kid who didn't understand.  
  
"Fine," he said at last, hoping he wouldn't regret it. "But keep to that side." Zero smiled again, and, not even bothering with the covers, curled himself up on X's bed. He was asleep in seconds. X sighed.  
  
"I hope you don't kill me when you wake up..."  
  
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"I count a staff of twenty. TWENTY! We need an ARMY in here, and we get TWENTY!!!" Law fumed. He had been the first to be rebuilt from the medical ward staff, and not even being dead and then back again could dampen his skill. Unlike Akr, he had returned to his right mind within an hour, and was now barking orders in the stead of Reggae, who was still getting his much needed rest--although they HAD had to knock the mantis out to keep him in bed. The recharger was not for the purpose of making reploids fighting fit--it was just an emergency burst of energy when one go so drained its power core couldn't even replenish itself properly, to make sure it didn't become damaged from overwork.  
  
"I'm sorry, sir!" Akr whined. He had been surprisingly proficient int he medical ward--it seemed the hectic, rushed air of the place managed to keep him attentive. He had never before been able to do anything along medical lines, but now he almost seemed made for it. The suspicioun of a damaged chip was the main one--the same sort of thing could happen to humans with brain damage. The hound then ran off, in a rush to do seven different duties all at the same time.  
  
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Sting rapped on Bloodrush's door nervously. He had been sent by Aerthin Dorackin--Aerthin Dorackin! Whou would've thought?--to pluck the Red Maverick up and take him to see her. Nevermind that Sting held higher status than her, and Bloodrush higher than he.  
  
But now, of course, the door was locked, and there was no response from within. He knocked again, and this time someone inside growled at him.  
  
"Go away," X said from within the darkneed room. He tried to roll over, but he was immobilized--it took a moment for him to realize that the reason he couldn't move was that Zero, at some point or another, had wrapped his arms around him like hwas a teddy bear. 'Erk...'  
  
Sting, outside, didn't know of this uncomfortable development. He hissed in frustration, and set off down the hall. He was going to be in for a fair bit of trouble when Aerthin got wind that he had run, but too bad. He would simply have to take advantage of his higher rank.  
  
In the room, X was trying to very carefully get himself free of Zero, but he knew the last thing he wanted was to wake the reploid--a hungover Red Maverick was something he definately didn't care to contend with. Alas, the blonde's eyes snaped open the moment X twitched one of his arms away. The red reploid tightened his grip around X's shoulders, and he shoved the hilt of his inactive saber agains the blue reploid's middriff. He hissed thickly, staring into X's terrified green eyes. Then he abruptly pulled away, rolling off the bed to land on all fours, then folded himself into a crosslegged sitting position, tossing his saber hilt into the air and catching it again.  
  
"Say anything, to anyone, and I will kill you."  
  
X, shaking on the bed and considering attempting to sink into the wall, did not doubt.  
  
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Reggae had a few vague impressions of voices making a dent in his foggy stupor. After a while, as cognitive thought returned to him, he realized the deep mist to be induced by sedative--those morons had drugged him! He knew he had been worn out and they were only trying to help him, but there was no time for laying about! The med staff was worn thin across the mass of injuries, and he was just lazing here in a bed! He determined to get up and set to work immidiately.  
  
Of course, first he had to regain proper control of his limbs.  
  
"Heya, Reg. Glad you're awake, we can definately use your help," Law piped. Reggae forced his golden eyes open, and found himself staring at the other reploid through a thick haze.  
  
"Nnnguh...how long did they put me out for?" he asked slowly.  
  
"Only a day. Can ya get up?" the pink-and-green Law responded. Reggae nodded, the process knocking loose some of the fog, and shook his limbs awake.  
  
"Let's go."  
  
_____________________  
  
Zero twisted his saber hilt repeatedly in his grasp. Every time he did, the blade spurted to life and fell again. He stared deeply into the green light, blinking at the afterimage left when it vanished. He was sitting in a corner up inside a high storage room, one of his various spots where he went to stay away from all the other Mavericks. He hadn't seen X since he had stomped abruptly out of the room. He was NOT avoiding X. He wasn't. He...was having a hard time convincing himself.  
  
'Aaaaaw. Is-poor-Bloody-confused?' the gravelly voice was mocking, and mad laughter echoed in the backdrop.  
  
'Stay away from me,' Zero responded automatically, without really paying attention. He continued to study the blade of his saber. Vibrant, lightning green...  
  
The voice laughed at him. Then it faded away, drifting back to whatever recess it hid itself in. Zero barely noticed. He was still just staring intently into that green...  
  
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X was locked in quite a fight. He didn't even know the name of whoever it was he fought--it didn't really matter. All that mattered was the movement. The double blades of his saber, the constant footwork that kept him in and out of range. Slash, block and parry, crossways manuever, come in again, parry, catch a slip in defences, back down, feint left, strike high, low, cross slash... They were both panting heavily, reploid blood flowing freely from numerous minor cuts, armor battered. The opponent, a lynx reploid, had twin handaxes, metal weapons, save for along the edge, where a thin, slicing beam of energy burned like an orange flame. She danced nimbly around his lancing saber, her tail affording her supreme balance even in awkward landings, and repeatedly drew him in close for striking. But X knew that when she was in close, she had a harder time dodging the flaring blades of his saber, and he gave every bit as good as he got. The lynx wasn't actually using her usual weapon, however--that was a long, jagged beamwhip, which allowed her to stay out of the range of most melee weapons and use her high agility to the fullest.   
  
"Alright, mrergh," she said at last, drawing back and deactivating the axes. X nodded, deactivating his beamsaber, and walked off with a tired sigh. 


	9. Chapter 9: Four Star

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 9:  
  
Four Star  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Ooooh the delightful, delightful intrigue...Yes, everyone thinks of Mrs. Fourstar as "the Madame" or "Madame Fourstar." I don't know why. Just because, I guess. And I sort of forget the EXACT dialogue for when the Light Hologram activates...so I just made up my own.  
  
Hoorah for my marvelous reviewers, Crystalstorm21 and "alright, alright!" The trouble I could get in for that last chapter makes me shudder at the very thought, but it's well worth the risk if you guys are happy. Give all for the readers!  
  
Also, I made a note in my bio, but I know that probably no one ever reads it, so I'll copy&paste it right here, exactly the same:  
  
Strange ideas...I've been drawing various characters from my fic, Bloodrush. I've drawn Law, Aerthin Dorackin the first, and Reggae. However, since I lack skill in drawing humanoid faces, I can't do what I really want--illustrate scenes from Bloodrush. So I've been curious. Could there, possibly, be someone out there crazy enough to be willing to do some fanart for me, without pay? I could do an art trade! Not that my art is much to trade for, but hey, I try.  
  
So if anyone is, for some strange reason, interested in becoming my impromptu illustrator, e-mail me! Or message me on AIM or MSN Messenger.  
  
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Dio had been traversing the halls all day, and he was bone-weary. Anywhere he could, he had lended a hand, and in general just tried to boost moral. He was looking forward to at least a few hours of shuteye, when a woman deckded in an odd, flame-red suit approached him.  
  
"Sir, are you Dio Fourstar?" she asked. Dio nodded, making mental note that this woman knew his last name--very few knew that.  
  
"Oh, good, I've found you! You must hurry. You cannot keep Madame waiting," she said. As she turned around, he saw the insignia emblazoned on the back of her bright suit. Four stars in a half-circle above a hill. His family's old crest. So this woman was one of his mother's maids.  
  
It didn't surprise him that the woman didn't know what her lady's son looked like. Dio had not stayed long at home, and once his father walked out of his life, he couldn't stand the place any longer. He had run away, and so found himself wandering the streets, a boy barely into his teens and already so bitter that he couldn't stand the world. He had scraped together every cent he could, and had used this hard-earned money to get himself his precious beamsaber. Then he had joined the Hunters, and he himself had later admitted that, at the time, all he had been looking for was a nobler way to get himself killed. But then he had met X and Cain. That had been before Sigma turned Maverick, when X was a whole-hearted pacifist, before Cain had met his fate on the claws of Sharded Wolf.  
  
And now, after all this time, his mother had reappeared. He couldn't say he didn't smell something fishy in all of this.  
  
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"Hello, Dio," the woman said. She was dressed in a livid red gown, her black, thickly curled hair spilling loosely down her shoulders. Her eyes were dove gray, soft and gentle-seeming, and she stood like some sort of queen. Dio smiled at his mother, determined to be hospitable. She was family, after all.  
  
"Hello, mother," he said. "What brings you here?"  
  
"It has been a long time," she said, a trace of sadness in her lilting voice. Dio idly wondered how much dye she had used to hide the gray in her hair. "And I just wanted to make amends at last. I know I could have, should have, been a much better parent. Are you willing to forgive me?" She folded her hands meekly in her gown.  
  
"Of course, mother," Dio said honestly. His smile was more genuine, now. His mother had been many things--overambitious, distant, and harsh--but she was not a liar. She drew close, arms out as though to embrace her child.  
  
He didn't see the glittering knife in her hand until the final second.  
  
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Sting burbled and rattled his beak, clinging to the spiked ceiling of his room. On the floor below, Zero stood, listening to the chameleon, who would break off his noisemaking every few minutes to saw a few short phrases.  
  
"So Madame Fourstar finished Dio off, eh?" Zero asked. Sting nodded dizzily. He had been spying on the MHHQ, but he had been struck a glancing blow by a circuitfrier just before he escape--the result was that he had a hard time controlling his speech. Circuitfriers were horridly dangerous devices, especially in areas with a lot of technology. They used funnel-currents of energy to destroy the complex circuitry of machines, but at high power, the result would be a tremendous explosion. So they were kept at very low powers, and still they were too dangerous for most areas--a direct hit to a reploid would result in them going haywire, quite possibly destroying anything around them.  
  
"Good."  
  
Now Zero had something to consider. How would he get around to telling X...? The blue reploid might think Zero had instigated the whole thing. He would've simply sent Sting to tell him, but it would be days before the lizard would be able to speak correctly. He would simply have to tell X himself.  
  
In truth, Zero hadn't orchastrated the murder at all. Maybe some other Maverick had, hoping for even more havoc, but not he.  
  
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X was in the training room, as usual. He was practising a twinsaber technique called Fang Strike--a skill relying on speed, where the saber must be held above the user's head and angeled to strike high at the opponent. The twist was that the attack was to be turned into a feignt at the last possible moment, and the saber flipped to stab in low, while the opponent's defences were still up high.  
  
Zero watched the blue reploid as he dueled with Skratch, a weaslish Maverick who used small daggers, two held in each paw. The twinblade spun and flickered, its indigo light making the blood running from numerous minor slashes in the two reploids turn purple-black.  
  
"X," Zero called at last, grabbing his attention. X spun the twinblade to knock away a dagger strike, then deactivated his saber.  
  
"Yeah, Zero?" he asked. The Red Maverick made no attempt to be subtle or casual.  
  
"Sting just returned from a bit of spying. He brought some interesting news with him. Dio's mom, Madame Fourstar, was paying the place a visit. And she killed Dio. Knifed him in the back." X's emerald eyes went a flat, dead, blackish color.  
  
His head went whirling. Dio killed? By his own mother? The virus latched hungrily onto this knowledge, drawing images of blood and betrayal to feed the chaos. A surge of emotions, a twisted, unidentifiable medly that served no purpose save to dim and blur the world around him plagued X. 'By his own mother...' His hands were shaking. He hadn't realized he had flared his twinsaber to life until he raised his arms, staring deeply into the indigo flame. His own voice sounded alien to him as he spoke.  
  
"Where is she?"  
  
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Madame Fourstar tugged at her gloves. Her reploid maid, a simple girl by the name of Sorrel, had teleported her out of the HQ the moment Dio rattled out his final breath.  
  
She was completely calm. She repeatedly told herself this as she raised her hands to run them through her black hair, smoothing it in place. In her mind's eye, she continuosly saw Dio once again, his smile vanishing and his pale eyes going wide, choking out a denial before she pushed him backwards onto the floor. And his eyes glazed, their bitter echo of his past finally lost in a glassy stillness. She shivered.  
  
"Sorrel..." she began, addressing her maid, but she trailed off at the sudden light that twisted downwards through the air. Blue-white, it solidified into a dark-haired fellow with emerald eyes. And an expression of pure murder.  
  
"You are Madame Fourstar," he said flatly. A twin bladed beamsaber sprang to life in his grasp. "And you killed Dio."  
  
"Yes," she answered. She raised her chin haughtily. "I killed that pathetic creature that had the gall to call itself a Fourstar." X was seeing through a haze of red. 'Pathetic creature?! "It"?!'  
  
When he moved, he didn't even give the woman a second to scream.  
  
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It mumbled wordlessly into the darkness. Its thoughts were disjointed, confused. They had been that way for a long, long time.  
  
How long had it been this way? It couldn't quite remember. Funny, that it could remember in exquisite detail the moment of its death, but it couldn't keep track of time, or even of a proper pronoun. It simply thought of itself as "it." No name, no sex... It could keep track of change, however.  
  
And how much it had changed! It itself had been vicious, a killer beyond compare, a machine of death with a single purpose. But that had been long, long ago, before it had spent near forever as a spectator of the creature that succeeded it. And the violence had grown sour, the blood ashen, the screams tasteless. The death and pain could no longer hold any thrill. For it had done something which none of its kind had ever done. It had learned that life held value.  
  
How strange, that a being so submerged in death would from it discover something of life, something so elusive that many humans even lacked the understanding!  
  
It had always thought it'd hated humans. Hated the wretched beings, all of them, even its creator. It was far above them, yet controlled by a mere whim of theirs. It had desired so much to break free of that leash. Almost laughable, that freedom from commands had come only in the form of death on green lightning. And with that had come the cessation of the hatred, the beginning of the contemplation.  
  
It began to laugh.  
  
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Sorrel was sitting on the floor in the mansion where she had worked all her life, contemplating. She knew that Madame was dead--she had just seen her taken away, off to some morgue or the like. Cause of death was blamed on a Maverick attack. Sorrel didn't think that was it, though. That reploid that had killed Madame...he was more frightening than any Maverick she had ever seen. He had had green eyes, but they turned dead black as soon as he turned on his saber...  
  
What was she to do now? She had never been very bright--she was loyal to a fault, and diligent, but definately not independant. Suddenly a thought struck her. Should she seek for revenge for the Madame? Sorrel couldn't say she was particularly heartbroken at Madame's death--the woman had never showed much kindness to anyone, and Sorrel disliked the way she had killed her son, even if he was a disgrace in her eyes. Sorrel would never backtalk the Madame, however, would never disobey.   
  
"Alright, then," she said aloud. Why shouldn't she get revenge? It would show her loyalty to the Madame, at the very least. But she could never get proper vengeance in her current body--she was too thin, too small, too...helpless. She would have to fix that. But that would cost a lot of money...no worries there! Madame's will left the estate and all the money to its caretaker--specifically, her! She nodded sharply, and dug a piece of paper and a pen out from a drawer. While Sorrel's thinking skills were somewhat lacking, she was wonderful at sketching. What should she be....she had always loved horses...but being a reploid, she was far too heavy to ever ride on one...she would fix that! Within minutes, she was staring down lovingly at a sleek centaur figure, mane and tail both long and braided. She pulled a box of colored pencils off a shelf, and set to work on the colorscheme.   
  
Indigo...and silver...the colors of the night's sky...all indigo, the centaur was, with silver-trimmed armor, silver hooves, and silver mane and tail. Sorrel smiled as she realized that, without even thinking, she had added four small silver stars to the front of the breastplate. Sorrel was no name for this marvelous creature...  
  
"Four Star. Madame would be proud."  
  
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"Well, quite an overhaul here, Ms. Star," the mechanic said slowly, scratching his head. The sketch of the centaur form before him wasn't impossible, but it would be difficult. "It ain't gonna come cheap."  
  
"Name your price," Sorrel, or Ms. Star as she was now known, replied. The mechanic quickly totalled everything up in his head.   
  
"We're talking maybe two mil," he said matter-of-factly. Star simply nodded.  
  
"Okay then, set right to work. I want it done as soon as possible."  
  
_______________________  
  
X's breath shuddered in his chest. He was deeply asleep, fully armored on his bed, and nightmares were plaguing his mind. Scenes that he would never forget played out before him, just as they had so many times before...  
  
_______________________  
  
"Hey Dad," X said casually. He had addressed Cain as "Dad" ever since he had awakened. He knew, of course, that his real creator had been Dr. Light, but Cain was there, a tangible person, and the reploid had clung to him as a support during his first, slightly chaotic hours. He was a surrogate father, really, to make up for the one X would never know.  
  
"Hello, X," Cain replied. "Anything interesting been going on?" X just shrugged.   
  
"Sigma's been snapping at everybody worse than usual, but most people think he's just edgy over the rise in Mav activity. And Sharded hasn't been so up-and-hoppy either," the blue reploid said. Sigma was First Beamsaber and Leader of the Elites, the Red Squad. Sharded Wolf, a gray-furred reploid with a feral temper, led the Second Elites, the Blue Squad, as their First Beamsaber. The pair were known to be close friends, and if one was in a bad mood, they were both in a bad mood.  
  
"Ah...well, that can't really be helped. We just have to hope we can quell all this before it gets out of hand, and Sigma and Wolf can go back to be happy again," the old man said. X was just nodding, plopping himself in an office chair--the one on wheels, which he had unofficially reserved for himself--when the alarm shrieked out.   
  
"Woah!" the reploid squealed, covering his ears with his hands. That alarm had never before gone off, and the sound was quite shocking. "What's that mean?!"  
  
"Maverick in the base!" Cain replied, his thin voice worried. X pulled himself up out of his chair. He had no weapons, and his armor was in storage, but he was determined not to let the Mavs get at Cain...however, he wasn't very well able to hold to this when the door was torn off its hinges with a wrending blow, the metal buckling inwards and warping itself around its attackers fist. The Maverick, still hidden behind the door, pulled the metallic sheet off its claws and was revealed to be...X's jaw dropped.  
  
"Wolf!" he squeaked, horrified, "What are you doing?!" Sharded Wolf, his fur sticking out every which way, just grinned at the reploid, bearing his ivory-white teeth. His eyes burned a deep maroon in color.  
  
"Sigma's started it, and it looked like fun!" he howled, holding up a huge paw. His claws, great spikes of diamond-edged metal, were gleaming with something dark and wet. X felt his head spin at the sight of blood. He suddenly felt very, very sick.  
  
"Stay away from Cain," he said. Wolf raised an eyebrow at him, and then laughed. He backhanded X with one big paw, and the reploid smashed into the wall, leaving a sizeable dent and getting all the breath knocked out of him.  
  
"I'll do what I please," Wolf snarled jovially, and turned to Cain. "Goodbye, old man!" His paw lifted high over his head, and came down in a streak, ending in a burst of crimson wash and a scream that would echo in X's mind forever. X watched with a horrified fascination as Wolf licked his bloodied paw clean, his eyes smouldering. Then the shaggy-furred reploid vanished, teleporting away.  
  
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X felt the hum of the buster as it charged, the chambers heating, sparks and flecks of energy leaping jaggedly away from the barrel as they escape. Before him, Sharded Wolf stood, tall and imposing, his breat paws spread wide and inviting.  
  
"So you're a fighter now, X? That's wonderful! It's all about the fighting, you know," he howled, his maroon eyes rolling madly. The warrior had gone completely crazy, it seemed. X did not hesitate at the sight of the insane wolf. With an expression of resignition, he fired.  
  
Sharded Wolf leaped away, and rushed forth, his eyes wild and burning darkly. His huge paws, their wicked claws gleaming, swept out in front of him, and X rolled underneath the blow, firing his buster straight up into Sharded's belly. The reploid roared, snatching X up off the ground in a paw, tightening his grip around the small Hunter. X's armor screeched in a horrid, metallic voice as it was warped slowly inwards. X fired his buster straight into Sharded's face, and the wolf howled, pitching the Hunter across the ground. X skittered across the pavement, finally stopping when his helmet cracked loudly against a chunk of stone. The world swam murkily before his eyes, but still he charged his buster, the chambers drawing in air to keep it from overheating, sparks dancing all about it. Sharded Wolf snarled lowly, baring his teeth, and charged again, intending to crush the prone X into the ground. The Blue Hunter raised his buster and waited. He would only get one shot, and he couldn't afford to have Wolf block it. The reploid was practically on top of him, huge paw coming down like a shadow of death's wings, when X fired. The fully-charged shot took Wolf straight in his already somewhat wounded stomache, and he gasped out a pain-riddled howl, clawing at the air as he was knocked backwards off his feet. His stomache was a mess of sizzled fur, scorched metal, and exposed wires, pumping reploid lifeblood out onto the asphault. Wolf whimpered and howled, pressing a paw against his ruined belly in a feeble attempt to staunch the flow, and more blood drizzled from between his teeth. He hacked loudly, spattering the ground dark red, and snarled, his voice thick.  
  
"You're good, Hunter, but I'm not dead. I'll come back and make your life a living heck for this! Neither Mavericks nor Hunters will I allign with! I live for vengeance! Know this to be your death sentance!" And then he was gone, in a deep gray flash of light, twisting away into the air. X sighed, and gave in to the spinning darkness that surrounded his aching head.  
  
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X finally awoke, and pulled himself immidiately off the bed. He had been glad to put Sharded Wolf behind him so long ago--that reploid had caused him so much pain...X was certain he was dead. He had been bleeding everywhere and had had nowhere to run to for repairs. There was no way he could have survived. But just the memory of that horror was enough...X could feel the threat of wracking sobs building in his chest at the thought of Cain's death.  
  
"Hey," Zero said suddenly from the darkness. X looked around, and spotted the Red Maverick, leaning against the wall. "Rise and shine, buddyboy. I've got something I wanna show you."  
  
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"Huh..." X said slowly. He found himself staring at a greenish-walled capsule, half-frozen in the arctic environment. This was Chill Penguin's hangspot, and the flightless bird Mav had just recently informed Zero of this odd finding.   
  
"Pretty weird, huh? There're the things they used to store things from the old times. Chill couldn't get it open, though," the Red Maverick said, running his hand down the glassy surface. It wasn't really glass, of course--it was a form of reflective energy, one which, once in place, could be broken through by almost nothing.  
  
"Wonder how it opens..." X said slowly. He pressed his hand against one of the panels on the blue-metal base...and the energy field faded away. X and Zero both jumped away in surprise as a ghostly image of an old, heavyset man with a thick beard came to life.  
  
"X," the hologram said, its voice a metallic echo of the original person's rich rumble, "I am a hologram recording of Dr. Light, your creator. I had hoped you would not have to fight, but the world always needs a hero to stand up for it--so, just in case, I made several upgrades for your armor and weaponry systems. I couldn't put these all in one place, as that would make it far easier for them to fall into undesirable hands. So I'm afraid you'll have to go haring off all over creation if you want to find them all!" The hologram laughed, then immidiately continued onwards. "This capsule contains an upgrade for your boots. It will install a powerful dash jet in them. Step into the capsule to receive your upgrade."  
  
Zero and X looked at one another.  
  
"Well...guess I should do what he says?" X said slowly, and Zero shrugged.  
  
"May as well!"  
  
X nervously put his foot on the edge of the capsule, and paused. What if it was a trap? He didn't have much time to consider this, as he was suddenly shoved from behind.  
  
"Quit dawdling! I wanna see what happens!" Zero said loudly, pushing X into the capsule. An inner shield of energy, flaring white, slid down and surrounded the blue reploid, and a sudden rush of heat from below him made him jerk his gaze down to his boots. The blue metal simply flowed away, transfered by a special teleportation signature, and without his boots, X's feet were rather cold. Even with his thick socks, the air held a lot of bite. Then the new armor appeared--swirling up and forming itself around his feet, the energy solidified into gleaming white metal, boldly trimmed with bright gold and blue. Then the white energy shield produced by the capsule faded, and he stepped out.  
  
"Snazzy," was Zero's first comment. "Well? Test 'em out." X blinked.  
  
"In case you didn't figure it out that this is an upgrade, I've never used dash jets. I don't know how they work," he said flatly. Zero snorted and rolled his eyes.   
  
"You just kick 'em on like so," he said, and stomped his foot down on X's heel--and, thereby, on the nicely hidden switch that activated the dash jet. X was thrown forward across the snow by the jet, sending a white spray up before him. The dash was short-lived, of course, because the jets automatically switched off in a few seconds, but by the time they deactivated, X was already well buried in the snow, and Zero was rolling on the ground with laughter.  
  
"Zero!" X growled, his teeth chattering. Ice had crept sneakily through the collar of his breastplate, and it was COLD. "Jerk." Zero was too busy cackling to reply. 


	10. Chapter 10: Splitscreen

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 10:  
  
Splitscreen  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: I apologize to whoever may be shocked into absolute horror by the high-scool ring incident XD I just couldn't resist XD  
  
Ah, my wonderful reviewers! Cheer for the ever-loyal Crystalstorm21! And more cheer for the mysterious "????"!  
  
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She was slightly mesmerized by it all. She kept walking back and forth across the floor, listening enchantedly to the soft clattering of her silver hooves. Now she was, in all officiality, Four Star, the Centaur.  
  
"I take it you're pleased, then," the mechanic said, watching the delighted reploid cantering about. She nodded enthusiastically.  
  
"You've already received your pay, yes?" she asked then. "I'm certain I sent someone down to deliver it..." The man nodded.  
  
"Yes ma'am, you're good to go," he replied. Four Star, swinging the door open, trotted giddily out into the main street, uncaring of the people she knocked out of the way.  
  
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Zero seemed to be developing a habit of dragging X out of various engagements. He had snatched the blue reploid up from training, today, with a statement that there was something they had to do. X, of course, had no idea what Zero might be talking about.  
  
"Cha!" the Red Maverick shouted as he hefted his bed off the floor, setting it aside. X just watched blankly as the blonde crouched down, then blinked in surprise as he pulled open a hatch in the floor. "My special stash of stuff. I've been cooped up too much in here. We're going for a night on the town!" Panic suddenly leapt into X's throat.  
  
"D'you mean...?" he began weakly, but Zero threw him an almost offended look.  
  
"No, no killing. At least, I don't plan on any...yet..." he huffed, and pulled out a metallic box. This reply led X to a new question.  
  
"How do you plan to go out without someone recognizing you, then?" he asked.  
  
"I am master of disguise!" the Maverick cackled in response. He ran a hand through his thick hair, in what X at first thought was an idle gesture as he considered the box--though he hadn't noticed Zero to have any tendancies of that sort before...then he saw that Zero had fished a small key from his golden mane. He couldn't help but stare.  
  
"What?" Zero responded to the stare. "You think this mess of stuff ain't good for nothin'? Now, I tell you, who would think I'd hide stuff in my hair, eh?" X just laughed at him. For a horrendous murderer, the red reploid could be oddly comical at times. "Anyway, this little box contains something very special..." He fitted the key in the lock and, with a quick twist, the lid sprang open lightly. "Voila!"  
  
The objects in the box seemed normal enough. A plain black wristwatch, a spiked dog collar with one steel protrusion bent oddly, a high-school ring...nothing to scream over, really. X waited silently for Zero to elaborate on just how these little bits and bobs would help.  
  
"Look normal enough, eh? Watch this." Zero picked the spiked collar from the box and, pushing his hair out of the way, snapped it tightly around his neck. He twisted the bent spike...and suddenly, Zero was gone. In his place was a person some three inches taller, with hair so black it was turned blue by the air. His skin was dead-white, his eyes blackish pools, and he was decked in a morbid outfit of a tattered black t-shirt and oversized black jeans, wound with chains and jutting spikes at odd places. But when he spoke, it was with Zero's silky purr.  
  
"They're based off Sting Chameleon's cloaking system. A few tricks with the way light reflects offa ya, and you can make yourself look like just about anything! It's best to just change coloring, though, and maybe a few small details in the face and height. If you get too extravegent, you might forget what you look like. If someone accidentally walks through a part of the illusion, it kinda ruins the effect," he explained. X just nodded slowly, watching as Zero twisted the spike on the collar and so became Zero again. "Now we need to set a good one for you..."  
  
X looked into the box curiously, shuffling through the items.  
  
"So each one has its own programmed disguise, or do you set them up yourself?" he asked. Zero plucked the high-school ring from the box, looking at it.  
  
"They all come with a 'default' setting, and if you want you can plug 'em up to a computer and change it however y'like. I honestly don't know what half of these things' defaults are...guess we can find out." He stuck the ring onto his left hand, and twisted the gem that crowned it. Zero, of course, couldn't see himself, but X burst out in a wild whoop of laughter, toppling helplessly to the floor. Zero frowned at the blue reploid, who was paralyzed in his fit of hilarity, and dug into the box. Down in the bottom, a mirror was stashed, and he plucked it up to see just what was so funny.  
  
"AGH!!!" the Red Maverick shrieked, pulling the ring off his finger and throwing it violently against the wall. The hologram was broken the instant the ring left his finger, of course, but the image was burned permenantly into his mind's-eye. That disguise had been meant for a female! The thought of himself, looking mostly the same save with lavender-streaked silver hair and crystallin blue eyes, but wearing a scandelous green shirt--and certainly busty enough to fill the thing! It may have only been a hologram, a trick of light, but he still couldn't resist folding his arms across his chest and shuddering.  
  
"YOU get to try the next one, buddyboy," he snarled at the still-giggling X.  
  
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"Just crush it," the first grumbled lowly, his deep voice making the stones tremble. The second rolled her ochre eyes, which were already changing to bloody red, then continued studying the little human child she had caught wandering too close to her turf.   
  
"I think it's kinda cute. Maybe I'll keep it for a pet," she laughed, her voice crackling as it always did. The first tossed his head. He was not a huge beast, but certainly imposing--he was sheathed entirely in gleaming ebony metal and had vicious aqua eyes, with no pretense at him being anything but mechanical. None of the synthetic skins or furs that reploids often were made with. His name was Jabberwock, and he indeed did resemble the mythological beast--his vulturish head, set on the end of a serpentine neck, ended in a bladed beak, with two tusks jutting out the side. The wings that folded tightly to his shoulders looked too small to be functional for flying--and indeed they were. But they weren't made for flying in the first place. They held a compact form of energy generator in each wingbase, and when activated, they would turn into a pair of blades. Simply running beside his opponent would have deadly results. He called it the Razorun.  
  
His companion was also made entirely of pitch-black metal, with eyes that changed color endlessly--one might be confused watching them. Her name was Harpy. The metallic wings that stooped over her somewhat hunched form were indeed functional, with the aid of a pair of thrust jets set just below them. Her face was not something friendly to look upon--a twisted melding of bird and human, with wild white hair that went every which way.  
  
Then the third of the group spoke, his voice thin and light-hearted sounding, brimming with laughter.  
  
"A pet indeed! Quite a lovely little beast. I say we keep it," he stated, clicking his pincers together. He was Manticore. A six-legged monstrosity--once again of black metal--with a humanish face stuck haphazardly to his lionesque body, bladed wings that were useless for flight, great pincers that could crush straight through almost anything, and a segmented tail that was tipped with a huge razorblade. The pincers could fold back to reveal functional hands, and usually they stayed that way. The fact that he held his pincers bared today meant that something was soon to happen.   
  
"What a black lie," Jabberwock replied, "it'll get bigger and then what will you do with it?" He snorted loudly, making the unconscious child's hair fluff back and away from her face. "I say we just kill it now and not have to worry about it later." Harpy jabbed at him with a gnarled talon.  
  
"I'll take care of it! You're such a pessimist," she snapped, lowering her wings possessively over the little human. Manticore, his hazel eyes shining with amusement, clicked his pincers again.  
  
"I see nothing bad to come of this. Something...very beneficial," he chuckled. Manticore was very strange. He would maintain his amused disposition even while tearing someone to shreds, or being torn to shreds himself. And, he claimed, he could get hints and stabs of things that came from current actions--not really seer visions, but he could, somehow, discern if a certain action would have a positive or negative effect in times to come. Jabberwock was suspicious, figuring that Manticore faked it, but he would never dare say anything of that nature to the reploid's face. Manticore may be odd, but he was also deadly.  
  
"That settles it, then," Harpy skrawked. She, unlike Jabberwock, believed entirely that Manticore had some strange ability.   
  
Suddenly, the child mumbled, tilting her head and fluttering her richly brown eyes open. She stayed utterly silent as she looked into Harpy's twisted face, some vague curiosity in her expression but nothing else.  
  
"How odd," Harpy creeled, "it doesn't look afraid of me!" Manticore looked down on the girl.  
  
"What is your name?" he asked softly. The girl blinked.  
  
"I can't remember," she whispered. Her eyes were oddly empty. "I can't remember anything." Manticore twisted one pincer backwards, his oddly delicate-looking hand emerging from the deadly device, and pushed her auburn hair back. A blackish lump was raised just at her hairline.  
  
"You hit your head," Manticore said. "I guess I'll have to name you, then...what's this?" He was looking at her arm. There, tattooed onto her pale skin, was a grim deathshead skull. "Quite a marking. Well then, you will be Reapa, since you bear the mark of the reaper."  
  
"Reapa," the girl repeated softly. Harpy crooned cheerfully.  
  
From the dark of the backway, the fourth member houghed. The sound of claws dragging against the pavement made the girl snap her gaze towards the shadowy, towering figure. An odd, bluish light reflected from the thing's middriff as a thin shaft of sunlight managed to work its way through the tattered black canvas overhead.  
  
"Can she do any good?" he growled. His voice was low and ragged, as though he had long been suffering some lung problem. Manticore nodded.  
  
"I am certain, now. I sense something marvellous to come of this. We need only shelter and raise her...and teach her." The shadow houghed again--his next few breaths came as a broken wheeze, reaffirming Reapa's idea of breathing trouble.  
  
"Then, we teach her."  
  
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"Ev'rybo'y da'ce! Stay'n' 'live t'igh'!" Zero stepped in time to his singing, heading down the hall in the Mav base. X, now sporting a plain-looking neckless of wound leather strips with an odd, blank charm, grimaced.  
  
"I have some advice. Don't quit your day job," he said at last, cutting off the blonde's off-key singing. Zero frowned at him, laughed, and shoved open the door to the Gate room. He jabbed a few keys on the wall-panel, and the transdevice hummed to life. The pair were gone in a whitish flash.  
  
"Hi diddley ho, to grandmother's house we go," Zero said cheerfully, waltzing down the utterly empty section of street. He had made sure to set the coordinates to send them here, in a part of the city which was eternally deserted--save for those that had caused it to be that way, and the Red Maverick certainly wasn't afraid of them.  
  
The moment X teleported in behind him, he slid smoothely into an alleway and activated his disguise, the illusion slipping over him. X fingered the charm on his leather choker, twisting it, and he changed as well. His disguise had been chosen to match Zero's--it acted in exactly the same way, paling his skin, adding an inch to his height, and changing his clothing, hair, and eyes to a swallowing black.   
  
"Follow my lead, and don't say a thing," Zero purred. "And change your voice, too." Half-way through the sentance, he followed his own advice, and X blinked as his soft, silky purr turned into an oily grumble. As X had never been much in spying or disguising, he hadn't much experiance with fooling around with his own voice--it was easy enough to change, however, and he soon had aquired a somewhat annoying weaslish voice. Coupled with his naturally small stature, and now-lank blackish hair, it made him seem overall rodentish.  
  
Zero led him down the streets, until he spotted the dark brown van that sat abandoned on the road. It was little more than a shell now, having been stripped numerous times over by thieves and vandals, and no one ever bothered to try and move it anywhere. It had become a landmark, in this dingy, lowlife-crawling section of town. As Zero stalked slowly down the empty sidewalk, a slight shuffling drew his eye to a back alley. Slowly, a hunched figure emerged, a bat-based reploid, its leathery wings tattered and useless. Its eyes were red--and not simply because they had been made that way--and a cigarrette was pierced on one of its fangs, a thin stream of smoke curling lazily up. Its bloodshot eyes narrowed, and it coughed slightly, raising a cloud of smoke.  
  
"So, you made it on time after all, Anti. We were beginning to think you wouldn't come...usually you're the first one there. Eh? What's that?" the bat hacked up another cloud of smoke. X couldn't help but wrinkle his nose slightly at the vile smell of the stuff.  
  
"He's KTC. I felt like bringing him. Got a problem?" Zero--or, Anti--responded roughly. The bat threw up his long-fingered hands.  
  
"Certainly not, certainly not! Just you didn't strike me as the 'bring-a-friend' type..."  
  
"Fried, if you got thrown down the garbage shute, you wouldn't notice 'till a day later. Now shut up and let me in," he growled in response. Fried cringed and turned around, jabbing his thin fingers through an iron loop set in the ground. With a twist and a tug, a hatch door came open, and he shuffled to one side.  
  
"Enter, m'liege," he coughed, taking a drag on his cigarrette. As he passed by, Zero snatched the burning stick from the bat's mouth and crushed it against the wall.  
  
"You should quit smoking, Fried," he said calmly into the bat's shocked face.  
  
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"Aah," the goatish reploid chuckled as he saw who entered the darkened room. "Anti! So good of you to join us. Introduce us, would you, to your companion?"  
  
"Waltz, this is KTC. KTC, that's Waltz," he pointed at the goat, "and those're Bled, Purple, and Hro." In order, he indicated the other three at the low table--Bled was a lobstrish reploid, Purple a moth who was very NOT purple, and Hro a lantern-jawed humanoid with his hair in the most rediculous clip X had ever seen. It was a gold butterfly, for crying out loud! Wildly ornate, glittering with little crushed gems. Hro, unfortunately, did not miss X's stare.  
  
"Whatchat? Y'dun like my butterfly? Hah!" he laughed wickedly, and X quickly averted his eyes.   
  
'Why does Zero always attract the crazies...? I thought it was OPPOSITES attract...'  
  
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Reapa's deft fingers worked over the delicate bit of machinery laying in pieces on the table before her. Once completed, it would be a standard buster. From behind her, the ever-hidden fourth figure watched.  
  
"Amazing...you may have lost all your memory, but your hands still know the work they were born for..." he panted. She looked up, her dark eyes wide and empty as always. For a few minutes, she listened quietly to the reploid's harsh and ragged breathing, slow and slightly unsteady.  
  
"Shadow," she said then, addressing him by the only title any of the group knew him as, "there is something damaged about your breathing. If you let me see, perhaps I can fix it." The mysterious reploid, who spent most of his time hunched over, focusing his energy to maintaining his difficult breathing, straightened, a choked gasp rattling in his throat as he did so. His dark eyes narrowed. Many people were confused on how a reploid needed to breathe--they were machines, had no muscles required to be fed by oxygen. However, the same with any complex machinery, without some sort of cooling airflow, their systems would more easily overheat, and work less smoothely. Only, instead of using fans and vents, they had metallic lungs and a system of fluid. The air cooled the fluid, and the fluid ran this coolant throughout their body, lubricating and maintaining temperature. The color made absolutely no difference, of course, but as humans had wanted to "humanize" reploids, the majority of them had red fluid. Thus, it was called reploid blood.  
  
The shadow drew in another slow breath before taking a step forward. Reapa studied the large paw that came into the light; with great claws emerging from shaggy, ash-colored fur. The reploid stepped fully into the light, and Reapa's gaze traveled slowly upward.  
  
He wore no visible armor, covered entirely in shaggy, smokey fur. Save for across his stomache, where a patch of gleaming blue metal had been sauldered roughly in place. His arms were long and thick, ending in wide paws with great claws gleaming. He was a wolf reploid, clearly, his canine face endlessly leering--his vicious maroon eyes were pupilless, and glaring ominously.   
  
"You think you can fix me?" he asked plainly. The girl nodded.  
  
"If you were to let me see, I may be able to repair you," she replied. "How did you aquire this damage?" His eyes narrowed, and he considered. Then, apparently, he decided it would hurt nothing to tell her.  
  
"I was in a battle with another reploid. A Hunter. He won, but I escaped, and Manticore found me before I died," he wheezed lowly, then made an impatient gesture with his paw. "Now. What must you do to fix me?"   
  
"You have to be deactivated, of course. Then I must open your chest compartment and locate the damage, and repair it. It may take me some time," she responded, standing. He considered, then, finally, nodded. He knew the girl's skill was extraordinary, and he despised his inability to function properly--the blow he had taken, in addition to scorching open his stomache, had half-destroyed his lungs, and he had never been able to breathe correctly again after it. Reapa walked slowly up to him, no sign of nervousness for approaching the hulking wolf reploid. With a final glance at her, he commanded the system shutdown. Slowly, the malicious light faded from his eyes, and he became nothing more than a hunk of metal and wires. Once offline, his mechanical heart ceased pumping, and the reploid blood in his fluid system went still. As long as he was not operating, and therefore not producing heat to be diluted by his blood, it didn't matter if the fluid moved through him or not, and having it stop would eliminate most chance of him bleeding to death--just in case something went wrong. Reapa, her blank eyes gleaming slightly, pushed the inactive machine backwards, making it lay flat on its back. Then, snatching up the equipment Manticore had gleaned for her from unknown sources, she set to work.  
  
The inside of the reploid's metal body was a mess. Much of the destroyed wiring had been left as it was, charred and useless, and leaking fluid had been playing havoc in his system--had he gone on for much longer in the shape he was, he would have been short-circuited or drowned by his own blood. Immidiately, she set to work repairing and replacing the wiring--Manticore had an enourmous stash of machinoid bits and pieces laying about, though the only metal plating he had was that bright, gleaming blue.   
  
When Jabberwock came inside, he gagged in shock to see the wolf reploid, Shadow, lying prone on the ground, Reapa crouched over him and working away on him.   
  
"Whazzat?!"  
  
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He skittered quickly across the rubble--what he would give for dash jets at the moment! Just ahead, what was left of the MHHQ stood, with humans, reploids, and robotic drones all working furiously to repair the great gaping holes in their precious building. Someone shouted something quite angrily, someone else thwacked that person across the head, and a reploid shrieked in rage at the pair of them.   
  
"Whosa yer boss?" the stranger asked of the first person he encountered, a small reploid busy digging salvagable bits and pieces from a pile of rubble. She turned to stare at him.  
  
"Who're you?" she demanded. The stranger was quite odd--she couldn't tell if he was a human, or a humanoid reploid. He wore a heavy, dark cloak, the hood up and enshrouding his face.   
  
"Name HissnLatch ring a bell?" he responded, tossing back his hood. He had a narrow face, and bright yellow eyes, with platinum-colored hair waving down to his shoulders.   
  
"You!" she gasped, dropping her shovel with a clang. "What are you doing here?" HissnLatch, as was his nickname, was well known amongst the Hunters. And very much despised. He was a complete and total sellout--he would change sides at the drop of a hat. The "vampiric"--as he was known--reploid had started off with the Hunters, then switched to the side of the Mavericks the next day, then came crawling back to MHHQ with some concocted story. When a week later he slaughtered three Hunters in their beds, he was labelled permanently as an enemy of the Hunters.  
  
"Yes, me," he laughed...then he held up his hand, balled into a fist. His thin, flexible armor, designed to be almost unnoticeable, unfolded outwards and enwrapped his hand, forming the violet-colored barrel for his buster. "Now I'd greatly appreciate knowing who your current head hauncho is." The small reploid before him adopted an enraged expression, and tossed her arm out to the side. The armor locked itself rigid, and the plates shuffled upwards to form a riflish buster.  
  
"Hah! Like I'd tell you anything, vampire," she cackled at him, her buster humming, sparks of energy flickering around the nozzle. HissnLatch rolled his eyes, leapt out of the way of the pelting energy that she fired, and spun up beside her.  
  
"Oh, I'm so dissapointed," he said softly, and fired. Rather than a sphericle "bullet" of energy, the shot was a high-pressured, hair-thin beam, like some sort of odd saber. It sliced neatly through the Huntress's armor, piercing straight through, and her eyes went wide and blank with shock as she crumpled, cutting herself nearly in two on the potent beam, spraying deep red blood into a fan in the air. HissnLatch tossed his head, and released the inner trigger to his buster. He stowed the device away, the thin plates swiftly collapsing back into their previous state.  
  
But, of course, someone else had noticed the pale-haired reploid and his fiendish act. He sighed as the other Hunters charged forward, pulling from under his cloak a rediculous green hat with a long red faux feather stuck in the brim. Smoothing out the feltish cap, he stuck it jauntily on his head, tossed his cloak over his shoulder and out of the way, and twisted his armor back into the buster. So much for talking things over...  
  
"Heh." 


	11. Chapter 11: Pieces in Place

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 11:  
  
Pieces in Place  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Not much response to the last chapter. Gettin' bored? Too bad. I intend to follow this thing the whole way through, now. But I do appreciate greatly my two reviewers, the loyal Crystalstorm21 and the new Celena Schezar!  
  
Purple's dialect is a bit...difficult. That's why I included translations XD  
  
This chapter is the funnest I've done for a while. What with all the torturous situations I get to stick the characters in, and the revelations which I've been building up to for a while now! The pieces are in place, and now the play begins...  
  
And also, I have to stick some author's notes at the end of this one. I haven't been doing that much, but I wanna talk about some stuff in this chapter without spoiling it all.  
  
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He was getting nervous. Okay, he wasn't GETTING nervous, he WAS nervous. Purple kept glancing sideways at him. Or more specifically, at his choker necklace. Waltz waited quietly for a few moments, until, finally a small crystallin chime sounded from behind him.   
  
"It has begun," he stated, and Fried staggered in from above. Waltz looked around slowly, then nodded, taking a seat. Zero unceremoniously shoved X down into a chair, slumping into the one beside him, and folded his arms across his chest.  
  
"So our little moron didn't make it. Is he still insisting on his stupid little games?" Zero asked lowly. Waltz nodded.  
  
"We can only hope he doesn't succeed. And what news does all bear here? You start, Anti, since things seem to be getting interesting for you," the goat snorted. Zero rolled his eyes and leaned his chair back, studying the ceiling as he pondered what to tell. Finally, and still not bothering to glance at Waltz, he hummed.  
  
"The Hunters are trashed. General Roga's been struck down by some weird virus; I think he's probably dead by now. The medic ward was trashed when a top Hunter went Maverick right in the middle of it. The hangar was demolished and the center of the building blown sky-high when a Maverick went kamikaze on it. Their stand-in General was murdered by some unhappy person," he stated blandly, still staring at the ceiling. X, hardly listening to him, was busy watching Purple out of the corner of his eye. The moth fluttered his gray wings once or twice, openly studying the mysterious "KTC." Finally, the reploid's curiousity overcame it.  
  
"An'ni, 'un, 'oo ye' f'ien', 'un?" he slurred. It took X a moment to understand what the moth had said; his strange accent was so thick, it made him nearly unintelligable. X quickly made a rough translation, and, from what he could make of it, Purple was saying something like, "Anti, hun, who your friend, hun?" 'HUN? He called Zero HUN? What a freak.'  
  
"KTC is KTC. Or Killer T-Cell, if you wanna know what it stands for. Why do you care?" Zero replied, lolling his head to one side in order to look at Purple.  
  
"Oi'na mean noothin' by i', An'ni 'un! Joos' cur'oos, 'un, ye know?" he said quickly, holding up his thin hands--all four of them. That sentance X mentally translated as, "I not mean nothing by it, Anti hun! Just curious, hun, you know?" 'What is up with this guy saying "hun" all the time?'  
  
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Sting yawned, his metallic beak stretching wide open. It was quite a dull day, and so he had meandered into the aroborium jungle in the south, the place he had held domination over for a while now. All manner of robotic drones hummed and scurried about, as he slung himself easily between the taller trees, his green armor making him vanish into the foliage. He came to a stop clinging to a rock wall. Below was a tunnel rigged to collapse itself at the touch of a button, complete with concealed drones that would slow the intruder down. Up above, as far as Sting knew, was an empty shelf of rock, quite deep but also quite useless. Still, he may as well inspect that area of his territory as well...  
  
His claws scrabbled in the dirt and rock, pulling him swiftly up onto the ledge. He scuttled forward on all fours, standing only once he had come clear to the back wall. Giving the place a quick once-over with his bulbous, independantly swiveling eyes, he nodded with satisfaction and turned back. But the moment he took the first step towards the ledge, his metal boot clanging loudly against the stone, the overhanging rim of the shelf shuddered, and dumped a heap of rubble down clear across the exit. It piled up until, trembling, it overbalanced, and folded forwards. The stone grinded to a halt as it jammed itself against the top rim, forming a perfect tomb. Sting snarled enragedly, rushing over and clawing at the wall, but it had packed itself well and would not give to his talons.  
  
"Stupid unstable cliffsides," the lizard hissed, batting the rock with his barbed tail. A groaning crunch from behind him caught his attention, and he ever so slowly turned, staring wide-eyed at the titan that slowly heaved itself out of the rock wall behind him. It left a cavern open to the air behind it, but Sting was a bit distracted from inspecting this odd area, for the metal behemoth lurched closer, its huge claws whirling, flashing in the dimness of the tomb. Through the murk he could make out jungle-green metal, and an odd white streak around its middriff. Then it pulled back one arm, and, without a word, thrust it forward, its spinning claw clicking free and snapping across the room, flailing on the end of its chain. Sting yelped in shock and jumped, climbing straight up the wall, and shuddered as the robot's claw drove through the stone below him, crushing rocks into powder. The chain snapped taut, and, with a squealing, grating noise, the entire hulking robot was dragged across the room, until its claw clicked back to place on its arm. It stared dully up at sting, who clung to the wall tightly, hissing down at it. Snapping out his jointed, metallic tongue, Chameleon caught the tip in a crevice near the midpoint of the ceiling. Kicking himself off the wall, he swung in a great arc across the room, lashing his tail out to strike the stupid robot in the head. Metal rang against metal, but Sting's spines prevailed, leaving a sparking gash straight up the 'bot's forehead. With a metal whirr, it crouched low. Sting, assuming it was trying to avoid a repeat attack, dropped himself lower by letting another few links of his tunk click outwards, and swung back around. Then the titan jumped.  
  
Sting was barely even aware that the thing was moving before the world exploded in a vibrant, violent color, and a hearty ringing filled his ears. It took him a few moments to register the hideous, twisting pain in his left leg, and even more before the thought finally came though that the behemoth robot had jumped on him. Slowly, painfully, Sting tried to drag himself away, but the 'bot stommed its massive, heavy foot down on his already-injured leg. Metal groaned and shrieked as it was warped and shorn, and wires angrily spurted fluids and energy as they were ripped apart by the jagged metal. Sting screamed, throwing back his head, a warbling sound. The camo-green 'bot lifted its foot and snatched Sting up in one huge pincer, lifting him roughly from the floor. Pulling back its arm, it launched its claw straight for the wall, smashing Sting against stone, and releasing him, leaving him buried in rubble and dust. Choking, whimpering, the lizard clawed his way out of his premature grave, dragging himself up the wall, a dark smear trailing after his ruined leg. The spines lining his tail glowed a vicious green just for a moment, and then he swung the barbed appendage, loosing a triple bolt of energy. Only one shot struck home, sizzling straight into the center of the blasted 'bot's head, but that was all it took. It rocked slowly backwards as smoke poured from the new hole in its head, and Sting fired again, toppling the behemoth. As soon as it struck the ground, it went haywire, its armor tearing outwards as its systems revolted against it, eating themselves into a horrendous blaze. Flying shrapnel scraped Sting off the wall, and, ponderously, the roof of the tomb collapsed, pouring in and filling the air with even more cloying dust. As sunlight filtered in, Sting choked out a final whine before his eyes rolled shut. Foggily, he entered the coordinates for the Maverick base, not even bothering with a buffer code. If he was unlucky and met someone else who happened to be teleporting in his general direction, then they would just have to blow all to pieces along with him.  
  
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HissnLatch gave Reggae a blank stare. The turncoat was currently pinned to a wall, his buster aimed nowhere and spewing thick, oily smoke. The problem with the high-powered lazer it fired was that the energy compressor, when used too much without heavy cooling, would overheat and melt itself down with relative ease, and render the entire weapon a lump of useless scrap.  
  
"So they put you in charge, eh? A bug running the Hunters...heh..." he laughed softly, seemingly unconcerned that he was surrounded and weaponless. His rediculous hat was still perched on his head, but it looked a bit ragged now, the plume torn and the brim scorched in multiple places. Using his free hand--he couldn't deactivate the buster, as the circuitry required to retract it had been destroyed--he swept the hat off his head, held it to his chest, and bowed smoothely, flipping out one end of his cloak. Reggae rolled his eyes.  
  
"You bozos need me to decide what to do with him? Throw him in a cell somewhere. We don't have time to deal with morons right-" Reggae never managed to finish that sentance, for HissnLatch leapt suddenly up from his bow, kicking the mantis in the side and knocking him to the ground. The Hunters that rushed in to restrain him met with a flurry of kicks and punches that left them blinking stupidly, laying on the ground and staring at the sky without a clue what had just happened. Calmly, HissnLatch set his hat back in its place, and ran, bounding over the wall of rubble that did a poor job of sealing him from the outside world.  
  
"What I would give for dashjets..." he sighed, dodging a shot from some buster. He regretted, now, not listening to his superior's advice and taking along multiple weapons. His arrogance was going to be the death of him... "But we all gotta die someday."  
  
He wouldn't have expected this soon, though, he thought as, suddenly, the flickering tip of a neon red beamsaber burned through his breastplate. He hadn't even heard Reggae charging up behind him, hadn't noticed at all until now the blasted bug had gone and stuck him with his blade.  
  
"Now THAT wasn't nice," he gasped, kicking out behind him and knocking Reggae far enough back to get himself off the skewer. He whirled around, and leapt to the side as Reggae stabbed at him again. "I do NOT have time for this, bug!" He kicked the mantis squarely in the gut, and the reploid doubled over. "You really aren't much of a fighter, are ya?" HissnLatch asked rhetorically, before clocking the bug on the back of the head and sending him sprawling. "Still, bubbybossman might appreciate a new pet..." He ducked down behind the senseless Reggae--while the Hunters all knew where he was and were closing in, he doubted they'd shoot straight at their own leader--and dug through the pockets on the inside of his cloak. Plucking a small bobble out, he fiddled with the buttons for a few moments, and then the light atop it flickered to life.   
  
"I should have thought of this thingie before!" he laughed, as a small sphere enclosed him and Reggae, teleporting them--and a chunk of the ground beneath them--away. The device itself, the miniature teleporter, was left on the ground, fried and sparking. The energy required to make a teleport field like that made it so that, in order to keep them a convenient travel-size, they could only be one-use.  
  
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The "meeting" had been going in relative calm. Hro kept laughing on and off at comments made by one of the others, and Purple had continued to pester people in his odd accent, through which X discovered he called everyone "hun" no matter who they were. Waltz was just shuffling through his neat stack of papers when the small room was flooded in a bright burst of light, completely blinding all present. X's eyes quickly reaggusted themselves in the following darkness, and his jaw dropped.  
  
In the middle of the table was a sizeable chunk of turf, as well as a pair of reploids. One was a humanoid, wearing an odd hat, with a hole clean through his chest making a splendid mess on the table. The other... X barely stopped himself from shouting out. It was Reggae! The mantis was out cold, laying in a heap.  
  
"Hope y'don' mind me dr'ppin' in, but I happ'n t've been stabbed qui'e nicely an'..." the reploid never got his slurred speach past that, as his body chose that moment to shut itself down, in order to cut off the bloodflow. He fell backwards onto the floor with a loud clunk, and Bled sighed as he shuffled his chair farther away.  
  
"Well..." Waltz said at last. "It seems HissnLatch has decided to join us after all." This time, X's sense couldn't quite keep up with his mouth.  
  
"HissnLatch?!" immidiately, the reploid snapped his jaw shut, but the damage had already been done. He hadn't even rememberd to mask his voice, dangit! Zero less-than-subtley kicked X under the table, and Waltz's eyes narrowed.  
  
"It seems your little friend isn't mute after all, Anti...and I'm quite sure I've heard that voice before...where was that? Oh, yes. IT BELONGED TO A HUNTER," the goat snarled. Zero, however, rolled his eyes.  
  
"Hey, c'mon. In all the countless billions of reploids, you don't think it's possible for TWO to sound the same? Please. I think you give humans too much credit for originality," he laughed, but Waltz appeared unfazed.  
  
"Care to tell me where you friend comes from, Anti? And where you come from, for that matter? In fact...how about you both take off those disguises right now?" Even Zero looked stunned at that one. The reploid goat laughed at their expressions. "You think I didn't know you wore those holograms? I've known since the day I met you, Anti. I can discern energy pattenrs. Or did you think these were just to be pretty?" he gestured to the green goggles he had looped around his neck. "I just didn't comment because I didn't care. But now...now I care." Zero sighed, and X saw him place his hand where, under his disguise, the hilt of his precious saber waited. Looked like it was the end for these reploids...X surprised himself when he found that he didn't care. They were a shifty lot, a group of weirdos, but... It did not good. He simply couldn't make himself care about the deaths of these reploids. But he had to keep Reggae out of harm's way...he had been a friend, even if that life seemed like it was centuries ago...leaning close to Zero, he whispered into his ear.  
  
"Don't touch the mantis on the table." Zero just nodded with a feral grin.  
  
"So you wanna see me, huh? Well...your funeral." And Zero twisted the spike on his collar. At the same moment, X yanked his woven leather necklace right off. The response was mixed.  
  
Purple stared at the two blankly, like his mind had run away from him. Hro began laughing in a psychotic hyena fashion. Bled jumped under the table, as though the plank of wood could somehow spare him. Fried crumpled right into his seat in a dead faint. But Waltz just looked intrigued.  
  
"A Maverick...and a Hunter...on the same side...How curious."  
  
"Not so," Zero countered. "We just be a pair of reploids out for a stroll!" And the bloodbath began.  
  
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His head was ringing. Or was that something else? Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings. And wished he hadn't woken up. On the table beside him was the grotesquely mutilated head of some unfortunate goat-based reploid, smeared in its own blood. Where the heck was he now?  
  
"Really, you didn't have to go THAT far...wasn't just killing them enough?" the voice was strangely familiar to Reggae, and yet...not. Like a voice he had known, but it had changed slightly.  
  
"I had to make up for the one of them that got away!" another voice replied. This voice made the mantis shudder. Where had he heard that cool, silky sound before?  
  
"Yeah, and whou woulda believed it...HissnLatch! That creep's changed sides so many times, it's a wonder he even remembers who he is." So HissnLatch had brought him here--wherever "here" was--and run off when the owners of the two familiars voices had, apparently, begun a massacre.  
  
"Heh. I remember him, yeah. Little dweeb... Anyway, watcha want me to do with your bug here?"  
  
"Eh? ...Crap! He's awake! Oh, this'll be fun. G'morning, Reggae!"  
  
Reggae finally moved, looking up to find out who his two "rescuers" may be...and froze, as he found himself staring straight at X and Bloodrush, standing side-by-side in the blood-smeared room. He spent a few minutes choking on air, at which the odd smile X wore widened.  
  
"Yes, back from the not-so-dead and all that crap," Bloodrush laughed. But his eyes were cold, and a moment later the rest of his expression changed to match them. "Call me Bloodrush, just once, and I will rip your arm out of its socket. I'm Zero." X nodded.  
  
"Believe him, he ain't bluffin'!" the Blue stated. Reggae, with nothing else to do, nodded.  
  
"So why, exactly, am I not dead yet?" the mantis asked then. X frowned.  
  
"Come on! I may not be a Hunter anymore, but I'm not some slavering beast hungry for blood! Not like prettyboy over here," he added, jabbing Zero in the ribs. The blonde snickered nad bared his teeth in a wicked grin. But REggae, who had worked in precision all his life, noticed something. Zero's eyes were like gray ice, cold, hard, glittering yet lifeless. And yet, when he looked at X, and laughed with him, something about those eyes changed. A spark of true emotions showed through the permafrost, like a blue shimmer that was there and then gone, a wraith of hospitality lost in a wasteland of cruelty.  
  
"I certainly hope you don't expect me to go gallivanting off, Mavericks," Reggae said at last, trying to sound forceful, cutting off the pair's laughter. But he was more than slightly disturbed, and it showed in his voice--his was not how he was used to seeing Mavericks act. Mavs were vicious, bloodthirsty killers. And yet here was a pair, one a former Hunter, possessed and stolen by a demon, the other said demon, the most notorious and feared murderer of his time...and they were laughing and joking, like any reploid in good spirits. The only thing was, they were doing it in a room full of blood and bits of reploid bodies. That was what set them apart.  
  
"Nah...I don't care what you do. I'm not worried about the Hunters making a move anytime soon, and Sigma's too busy polishing his own shiny head to notice or care," Zero said, stretching idly. X, however, had a curious look in his eye as he looked up at the taller Red. The next few moments required Reggae to go back over them again to make sure he understood what had just happened. X had, without any warning whatsoever, folded his leg over Zero's and thrown the reploid off balance, then struck him with a harsh, stiff-armed blow to the back of the head, knocking him out completely. Reggae just blinked. X's agility was like nothing he had ever seen the Blue possess before, and...  
  
"Wha?" was all he managed to say. X shrugged.  
  
"It was easier than a battle of words and wits to try and get him to let me do this anyway...he's too stubborn for his own good and he's certainly taught me a few tricks of 'persuasion.' Anyway, I want you to check him out for me. Call it a really weird hunch. I'll get you whatever junk it is you need if the scanner we got at base ain't good enough," the reploid informed him, while attempting to pick Zero up off the floor. "Dang you, you're heavy!" he complained to his unconscious partner.  
  
"...Eh?" Reggae said at last. "Now...um...why the heck would I do this? Why would I trot right into the middle of enemy territory, along with two of its greatest warriors, in the middle of some weird goings-on that I have no idea about?" Saying that proved to be a mistake. X, slowly looking up from his burden, stared straight at Reggae with a gaze like frozen emerald balefire, and when he spoke, that subtle difference Reggae had heard before became more pronounced--it was a deadly coldness, a hint at silken steel. It reminded him of Zero's purr.  
  
"Because. I. Said. So."  
  
"...okay."  
  
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'Hah-hah-hah!' Se-how-far-your-trust-takes-you? A-traitor-is-always-doomed-to-be-betrayed-in-the-end!' Zero found, strangely, that the voice, the memories it summoned, didn't bother him in the slightest right now.  
  
'He had a reason, and a dang good one,' he replied calmly. It cackled.  
  
'Sure-sure-sure-just-keep-telling-yourself-that.' But Zero didn't have to. He truly believed that X had had a worthwhile reason for his apparent treachory.  
  
It was strange. Zero had never trusted anyone this much. Not even Sting Chameleon, who had been the closest thing to a friend Zero had had for years. Slowly, the voice's quality changed; it sounded less menacing, more musing, contemplative.  
  
'Hmmmmm...' it hummed at last, its bass raumble fading on that note, leaving Zero alone.  
  
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Sting rolled his eyes in a less-than-cheerful manner. He had done a fairly good job of fixing his shattered leg, but he knew it would feel funny for quite a while. Still, that wasn't what was bugging him.  
  
He had been back to check out the cave that behemoth robot had emerged from, and in its depths found an ancient storage capsule that was sealed tight. He had, of course, heard about the capsule in Chill's domain up north, and how X was the only one that could open it. He suspected this capsule to be the same--something long buried, now waiting for X to come and unlock it. However, Sting had no idea where X was, which was annoying. He figured the Blue was wherever Bloodrush was...  
  
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Reggae was plainly dumbfounded. X had taken him into the heart of the Maverick base, straight ot its medical ward--if the room packed with various bits and pieces, mostly used for self-repair, could be called such a thing--and no one appeared to have noticed a thing. He somehow doubted the Mavericks were really this unnattentive...  
  
"Got whatever junk y'need?" X asked suddenly, and Reggae jumped. He was noticeably high-strung at the moment, likely because of his current situation.  
  
"Yes," he replied thinly, "I've got whatever 'junk' I need. Emphasis on 'junk," he added, kicking an unidentifiable lump of metal.  
  
"X!" someone hissed suddenly. Both reploids whirled around, to find Sting Chameleon hanging upside down from the door frame.   
  
"Not to take up your oh-so-valuable time, but I found another of those capsules. Just like the one you got your boots in. I had t'duke with a mammoth ol' robot to get it, and I intend t'see what's in it!" X nodded.  
  
"Alrighty then, I guess I can check it out. But first y'gotta get me a guard to keep people outta here; I don't want any stupid Mav fooling around with my buisiness," he said, pointing at Reggae. Sting nodded with a grin.  
  
"I got just the one!"  
  
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"All you need to know is it's important, and Sigma wouldn't like it," X told Aerthin Dorackin the Fifth. The fact that she was still alive, and hadn't been blown up in one suicide mission or another, was a testiment to her intelligence. She considered for a long time, then nodded.  
  
"If Siggy don't like it, I'm yer dragon," she stated, grinning toothily.  
  
"Alright!" Sting chirped. "Now let's get capsule-cracking!"  
  
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Sting Chameleon had always been curious. He had wanted to know all the secrets he could get his claws on, any little tidbit that he got wind of. And this, combined with his excellent stealth, made him a top-notch spy.  
  
Right now, however, he was waiting in plain sight as X approached the capsule. The lizard watched intently as the energy barrier fizled away, and the holographic image of an old, heavyset man appeared.  
  
"X," the false voice, an echo of the past, greeted. "I created an upgrade for your armor. I'll spare you the technological details, but in short, it will absorb a portion of the damage you receive from attacks. Step into the capsule to receive your new armor."  
  
Without hesitation this time, X hopped onto the platform base of the ancient capsule. He was once again encased in a cylidrical field of whitish energy, and his greast and shoulder plates were diffused away. Within moments, they had been replaced with a new set, a gleaming white that matched his boots. He stepped down from the capsule and, with a slad glance back at it, teleported back to the Maverick base.  
  
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Reggae didn't even notice at first when X came in. He was too busy staring intently at the results from the scan on Zero he had been commanded to make.  
  
"X?" he said then, acknowledging the presence of the Blue. "What was your little hunch...?"  
  
"Why?" X asked in response. "Something unusual turn up?" Reggae nodded slowly.  
  
"The Red Maverick...isn't Maverick." X stared at him blankly.  
  
"Come again?"  
  
"He carries no trace of the Maverick virus!"  
  
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Zero wondered idly if he should wake up yet. He was getting a bit bored of his mostly-self-imposed unconsciousness--he could have woken up before now, but he knew that X, for whatever reason, had wanted him out cold. Still, he wasn't going to miss out entirely on this mysterious happening...  
  
Zero opened his eyes, to find himself staring at the cracked old ceiling of the Mav base's medical storage.  
  
"Hello?" he asked, looking around. As it was a small room, it didn't take him much time to spot X and Reggae, apparently deep in conversation about something. He stood up and, taking advantage of the fact that neither were looking ups way, snuck up behind X.  
  
"Har!" Clonk. While he hadn't thrown a whole lot of effort into the blow, he also hadn't taken great pain to make it a light one either, and the blue reploid staggered to one side, clutching his head--he hadn't been wearing his helmet.  
  
"Agh...I didn't ask for a wake-up call..." he groaned, shaking his head. Zero just laughed at him.  
  
"So what is up?" the Red asked. Reggae gave him an odd look, and held up the printout of the scan. Zero snatched it away from him and looked at it, but his face was blank. He even turned it upside down, clearly unable to make sense of the garbled numbers. Finally, he shrugged.  
  
"Tree-killer," he stated, turning the paper over. Reggae made an exhasperated face.  
  
"This coming from the reploid that set fire to over four acres of forest?" Zero ignored the mantis.  
  
"So what's this? And why have I been handed whoever's junk?" he asked finally. X looked up at him oddly.  
  
"That's your junk, Zero. The results of a medical scan," he said plainly. The Red looked confounded for a moment, but then, turning the paper right-side up once more, finally seemed to get the meaning of the strings and columns of figures.  
  
"Waaaait...you're kidding, right? Riiiiiiight?" he asked, but both X and Reggae shook their heads. Zero read over the paper again and again, but the words did not change--no trace of Maverick infection.  
  
"Well...then...this is...weird. Huh. There goes my alibi. I guess that makes me just plain crazy. Darn.  
  
"And now, gentlemen, I bid you adieu--" Reggae began, but X silenced him with a look. The mantis fidgeted nervously.  
  
"We have a mess to fix now, Zero. YOUR mess," the Blue sighed.  
  
"Well let the bug go, anyway," Zero said with a shrug. "He certainly can't help." X sighed again and nodded, leaning out into the hallway.  
  
"Aerthin!" he shouted, and the dragon, who was lounging on the floor, snapped to attention. "Take Reg to the Gates and don't let anybody get in his way. And DON'T FOLLOW HIM." Aerthin rolled her eyes, but she nodded and picked herself up, scooping Reggae off the ground in one talon.  
  
"Righty-o, Mr. Blue," she laughed, trotting noisily down the hall.  
  
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"Blowin' with the wind of change..." Zero sang cheerily. X was not amused as they walked down the hall.  
  
The pair's positions to have done nearly an about-face--now, X was the Maverick.  
  
"I guess there's nothing to be done...I'm stuck now," X sighed, clicking the door shut behind him. Zero plopped himself down on his bed, and snatched one of the covers, beginning to roll it up idly.  
  
"Don't fret, buddy boy! Or maybe do fret. Or maybe don't waste time fretting and get something that'll make a good gag," the Raid said. X blinked.  
  
"Why a gag?" he asked. Zero grinned somewhat lopsidedly.  
  
"I never made the failsafe to be turned off...but it can be commanded to destroy itself. However, that would not be...pleasent for the host."  
  
X gulped.  
  
"So I have a choice between Maverick, or agony for an unknown amount of time?"  
  
"That's about it, yeah."  
  
"Oh joy...can't I just shut down?" Zero shook his head.  
  
"The failsafe feeds itself off of system energy. If you shut down, it shuts down with you and waits until you come back online. And it can't receive commands while shutdown...and once it's received a command, it disables a reploid's shutdown. There's no passing out."  
  
"You did that on purpose, you sadistic freak!"  
  
"...yeah, actually, I did. I didn't like you very much at the time, y'see, so I decided that if I ever wanted a really good way to get rid of you, I could just command the virus to self-destruct and then pick you off once it's done..."  
  
"SPLENDID."  
  
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Zero was quite glad he had suggested more than just one gag. It had taken three to effectively muffle X's shrieking--dang was that reploid's voice piercing! The Blue's cries had since degenerated to an uncomprehendable gurgling, and he no longer struggled very much, but Zero still held him pinned to the floor, just in case. He couldn't tell if X was simply running out of strength, or his pain actually had lessened.  
  
And at that moment, someone began knocking on the door.  
  
"Go away!" Zero snarled. However, he hadn't had the presence of mind or the time to actually LOCK the stupid door, and it was swung abruptly open as Storm Eagle stalked in. The raptor-based reploid stopped and stared, however, when he saw Zero pinning a gagged and whimpering X to the floor.  
  
"Aaaah...?" the bird asked slowly. Zero glared pure murder at him.  
  
"Busy, here!" he growled. "Get out!" Storm made a bit of a face--somewhat odd-looking because of his beak--and fluttered his wings.  
  
"Sigma wants--"  
  
"Sigma wants to have his shiny head smashed in! OUT!" X chose that moment to scream again, and by the sound of it, he had managed to slip his gag. Storm winced and put a hand to his head.  
  
"What's wrong with him?!" Zero grinned evilly.  
  
"I'm not sure yet. You might not wanna get too close, though..."  
  
Storm's eyes widened, and he took a few quick steps backwards.  
  
"Right, then, uh, I guess I'll be going, then!" The bird was out the door in a flash of indigo-purple feathers. Zero started laughing, but cut off with a grimace as X shrieked again. He would HAVE to fix that gag, and hope the thrashing reploid didn't hurt himself as soon as he let him go. He hopped away, and then almost laughed as X immidiately curled himself into the tightest little ball he could manage. It really was pathetic.  
  
He fiddled with the gag until it was fully in place once more, then sat back and simply looked at the small reploid with an amused expression. X's chest was heaving, and his messy hair was slicked down with sweat.  
  
Just for a moment, then, X opened his eyes, deep gem green...and filled to the brim with a tortured horror. They snapped shut again, and Zero's smile died a sudden death as he stared down at X. The Red shuddered.  
  
What was up with that? A heavy feeling layed in his chest. Was it...guilt? ...  
  
It couldn't be.  
  
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HissnLatch was not too overly pleased. He was staring straight into the maroonish eyes of a wolf-based reploid. A reploid everyone thought was dead. A reploid named Sharded Wolf.  
  
"What do you want, Wolf?" he growled, but the response came not from the wolf, but from a small, dark-eyed human girl who stepped out from behind the behemoth.  
  
"We want you to be an ally to Third Faction, and I want to study your armor," she stated simply.  
  
"...Ah...and you are?" the reploid asked, immidiately shedding his annoyed snap and donning his charismatic drawl. It did not seem to affect the girl.  
  
"I am Reapa, Third Faction's mechanic. I'm the one who fixed you," she said. HissnLatch raised a brow at the diminuitive creature, then looked down at his armor, which had been patched in a strange, metallic blue. But the work had been done so seamlessly, it simply seemed like an odd badge.  
  
"...Hmm."  
  
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It pondered the turn of events curiously. It had THOUGHT it had that beast all figured out...and now, with the appearance of this new reploid, this X, everything had been turned upside down.  
  
In an almost offhanded manner, the blue reploid had broken through nearly all of Zero's wall of cold, bitter refusal. X himself may not realize it...but the Red hadn't acted this way, in this cheerful, childish fashion that could actually care, for well over 30 years now. It was the way Zero had acted when he was just plain Zero Omega Wily, before any of the trouble started. The way Zero had acted before...he killed him.  
  
'Him?' it wondered then. Was the "him" itself? It had forgitten...yes, it was. HE was.  
  
Things were changing again. He rememberd himself, not as a confounded, entrapped entity, but as he had been--and Zero hadn't tried to stop him from remembering. Every time the phantom had gotten a grip on who, exactly, he was, the Red had fought it away, refused it. But now...now he was preoccupied, in a way he never had been before. He was watching over someone he truly cared about, a very strange twist of fate.  
  
'A guardian demon...'  
  
But still, the long-dead ghost of Bass Wily would not trust his brother, his killer. Not...yet...  
  
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Author's Notes 2: Told ya there'd be some down here. Anyway, how many honestly already knew the phantom was Bass? All the babbling about black and gold, after all.  
  
Also, I was considering making X's little dilemma a lot more...violently descriptive, but I decided to be nice to all the fans and not go into it TOO much. Hehehe. 


	12. Chapter 12: Dissention

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 12:  
  
Dissention  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are, however.  
  
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Author's Notes: Yay for reviewers, Crystalstorm21, MooMoo who has now returned, Yammy who has also returned, and Celena Schezar once more! I've also got a new reviewer, Iredescent Hope! Yay!  
  
And now, just to shove a pointy stick in everyone's hopes and dreams, this is the next-to-last chapter. That's right, next chapter will be the final play, and then you'll get to live with whatever fate I dealt to the characters FOREVER!  
  
Just kidding. I already have quite a chunk of the sequal's plot planned out--and believe me, it's going to contain twice as much twisted self-discovery and character torture!  
  
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She fidgeted nervously, her four hooves ringing against the pavement. Around her stood the members of Third Faction, a small and mysterious group of reploids--and one odd human girl--that prowled in the low parts of town. Now that the Brothers, a group of reploids who used to hold half sway under their leader, Waltz, had dissapeared, Third Faction was daring to expand. Four Star had been presented with two choices--join with Third Faction in its mysterious, unknown agenda, or be thrown in pieces into the nearest scrapheap.  
  
"Well, I'm not getting anywhere towards my goals on my own anyway..." she said thinly, and Manticore's slight smile grew.  
  
"Welcome, Four Star Centaur," the human girl murmured vaguely. Her eyes were empty, her face blank. "Allow me to introduce you to Third Faction. Manticore is the leader, you will obey him without question. Jabberwock, Harpy, and Sharded Wolf are the main fighting force. I am Reapa, the mechanic. And HissnLatch is our...negotiator." She gestured to each in turn, and HissnLatch made a flourishing bow, doffing his rediculous hat and taking Four Star's hand, dipping his head to kiss it in a gentlemanly fashion.  
  
"Charmed," he said smoothely, a deliberately enchanting expression on his naturally fair face. Four Star, being how she was, felt her reploid heart flutter at that, and HissnLatch's eyes flickered. Jabberwock rolled his own eyes and coughed, but said nothing.  
  
"So what are your goals that you are not getting towards?" Manticore asked curiously, as Reapa began walking away, clearly no longer interested in the centaur.  
  
"Vengeance against a certain Maverick, for killing the Madame," she replied.  
  
"Might you know this Maverick's name?" the lion-esque reploid looked very interested now, perhaps more than would have been expected.  
  
"No, but he was small, petite almost, with a high-pitched voice, baleful green eyes, and sapphire armor with a ruby set in the center forehead of the helmet."  
  
"I thought so..." Sharded Wolf snarled lowly, flexing his huge paws. "That means the stories are true. X has gone Maverick...You're not the only one out for blood, missy. I want my revenge too."  
  
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Zero was leaning against the wall, sitting on his bed crosslegged, with his arms back behind his head, watching X, who was still curled up on the floor. He had locked the door, and ignored it when, a few times, some overcurious or orders-bearing Maverick had knocked. He already knew--he wouldn't be able to force himself to leave this room, to leave X alone for even a second right now. He had done this to him in the first place, so he had to take the responsability and stay with him through to the end.   
  
X had, by this point, been rendered nonsensical and nearly paralytic. He no longer had the strength to move--the constant thrashing earlier, the stress, and the energy that the failsafe itself drew in order to complete its orders, all combined, had left him with precious little to keep himself going on, but he would live...if barely. He would definately need to be recharged afterwards, or he would be incapacitated for a week while his generator struggled to replicate energy when it barely had enough to work itself, let alone the rest of the reploid.  
  
While Zero kept watch, still as a metal statue, he let his mind wander back. He never wanted to remember anything too far back--nothing from before the point where he had first fought Sigma. He carefully kept that part of his recollections buried, never touching it. Truth be told, he was afraid he would be burned if he ever made an effort to remember the exact events from over 30 years ago...  
  
He shook his head, the first move he had made for a while now. He simply wouldn't look that far back...that was all he had ever had to do--he had been avoiding it for so long, his mind automatically shut it out. He wasn't sure if he could remember even if he tried, now.  
  
Instead, he dwelled on the more recent past, trying to discern the exact moment when he had lost his Maverick infection...for he knew he had had it before then. He had been the first Maverick to exist, after all.  
  
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The place was dark, and smelled of rotton dust and stagnant water, but he didn't really care. He was being hunted, and not just by any old reploid. Sigma himself, the grand leader of the Hunters, was chasing him down, and had him pinned in this old, shabby warehouse. Sure, he was an excellent fighter...but his only weapons were his pair of busters, one a standard weaponsystem, the other his last-ditch defense. The standard buster was totaled--he was lucky he hadn't lost his entire arm, in fact. And his defense buster wouldn't make a dent against Sigma--he couldn't afford to expend enough energy to actually give the blow a considerable amount of power.  
  
And so here he was, hiding like a rat in a barn, waiting for the Hunter to come close enough to disarm him. Once they were on an equal playing field, Zero would be the victor for sure--he was stronger and more agile than Sigma. He just didn't want to get impaled on a beamsaber before he got close enough for hand-to-hand combat.  
  
There was a heavy thunk as the door was kicked down, allowing light to enter the decrepit building. Zero, crouching up in a stack of old boxes--who knew what was in them, in this age-old place--waited patiently, barely breathing, poised to leap down the moment the Hunter got close enough. Sigma, the neon-green blade of his saber glowing like a lightningbolt, stalked in, casting his eyes back and forth, ready to strike in an instant if he spotted something. As far as he knew, he was fighting a wild Maverick, a creature with virtually no mind nor intelligence. Sigma was not too bright--he assumed that, because the Red Maverick had made such a direct attack, practically a suicide run, the reploid must not have much knowledge on the subtleties of war and battle.  
  
But Zero was a master.  
  
Sigma was directly below him. With only a ghost of a wraith's breath of sound, Zero pounced, kicking the saber away before he was even on the ground, and immidiately grappling with the larger reploid. Sigma, with a loud curse, stumbled and lost his balance. Within a moment, Zero had him pinned to the floor, his teeth bared in a wicked grin, and he was crushing in on the bald Hunter's throat, fingers curled like claws, drawing blood and tearing the synthetic skin away. Sigma kneed him in the gut, and he grunted, loosing his grip as he fell back slightly. The Hunter immidiately pressed the attack, and Zero found himself for a moment on the defensive, dodging the punches and kicks thrown by the bigger reploid. But the Red was not about to remain on the losing end of the battle; sidestepping when Sigma made the mistake of attempting a full-frontal lunge against his agiler opponent, Zero leapt on his back, knocking him to the floor and striking him harshly in the back of the head. Sigma dug his fingers into the nitch between Zero's forearm plate and the slick, absorbant layer of thinner metal beneath, and dragged the blonde Mav off of him, throwing him into a wall of boxes, which collapsed in around him, burying the Red temporarily. Zero clawed his way out with a snarl, kicking the rising Sigma straight in the jaw, flipping him backwards into an awkward position, lunging down at him again.  
  
He had Sigma in a hopeless position. The Hunter Leader was pinned to the floor, Zero's fingers digging once more into the already-crumpled metal of his neck, the Maverick's snarled grin bloody and feral and, with agonizing slowness, he began to tear the Hunter's throat out.   
  
The acrid, thick taste of a gore-bathed victory was on the tip of Zero's tongue when something happened. Of its own volition, his armor suddenly locked into place, the main control and generator for the heavy metal rebelling, revolting, sending a spasmadic jerk through him. The defense-system energy generator, which heightened the armor's absorbtion and powered its weaponry, seemed to all but short out, then flooded the entire suit, immobilize and nearly electrocuting the reploid. With a shriek, Zero fought himself out of the paralysis, pitching backwards without any semblance of grace, the joints in his armor refusing to work correctly. A few had even been fused in the energy backlash, making him all but lame as his leg refused to bend whatsoever.  
  
Sigma, gasping and choking on his own blood, finalized the senseless rebellion of the Maverick's armor-systems. Pushing himself off the ground, he smashed the crystal in the center of Zero's helmet--the crystal which served as the hyper-absorbant guardplate for the main control of the armor. Shards of the shattered gem shredded the bits of delicate internal wiring, and, with an animalistic howl, Zero flopped to the floor like a broken doll as the backlash of energy shocked him inside and out. But not before he caught his gaze with Sigma's, frozen steel eyes meeting drowned blue, and something within the Hunter's gaze snapped, and he looked away. Then the world closed in around Zero, inkstains slowly creeping up around him.  
  
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Zero snapped his eyes open, drawing himself from the half-dream state. Of course...that strange something that snapped in Sigma's eyes, like a wraith had ghosted across his vision and so shattered it, tainted it. Apparently, somehow, the Maverick virus had abandoned Zero...he had been the loser, the one which, it seemed, was about to be destroyed, and whatever the virus was, it held enough suggestion of intelligence to flee in an attempt at self-preservation. So that was how it worked...Mavericks on the verge of destruction were always the most dangerous to other reploids, for that was when the Maverick virus became truly maddened, and would pull anything to keep itself alive. And with crystal on Zero's helmet smashed, the generator wiring exposed and torn...the easiest escape had been to the reploid so conveniently in the area.  
  
"Huh...whattaya know..." He never had considered the possibility that the Maverick virus, in its truest, purest form, might be capable of grasping concepts, even one so simple as survival. Funny, that, since he had been its originator...he wasn't sure if he had created it, or if it had, in a twisted way, created him, or if the whole thing had been a coincidence.  
  
But that train of thought was dangerous. It led to a past too deep, was too closely tied to.  
  
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His mind had been allowed to wander, in a foggish state, half-paralyzed and uncomprehending, but slowly, it returned. There was still a slow ache spread generously throughout him, but other than that, nothing remained of the previous misery save an unpleseant memory.   
  
Slowly, he let himself unfold from his little ball, opening his eyes, staring at the ceiling in a state of exhaustion so powerful he could barely grasp the realization that the ordeal was over. He heard someone talking to him--it was Zero's voice, he realized after a moment--but he couldn't understand a word that was being said. His consciousness faded away even as Zero leaned over the edge of the bed to stare down at him, his mouth moving but X no longer able to hear any sound...  
  
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Zero stomped down the hallway, an unconscious X slung over his shoulders. He didn't really care that some reploids were looking at him funny--X certainly wasn't going to be doing any walking on his own at the moment. The rechargers had been stuffed way in the end of the west wing of the base, as they were rarely used. Usually, once a Maverick had run down to the point they needed them, they were already dead.  
  
He hummed a little tune to himself that he couldn't quite remember, interposing notes and comprimising rythmes as he went. X stirred slightly, but seemed unable to break the lull of pure and utter exhaustion that had caught him. Zero just snickered to himself. The bugger was still alive, so no worries! He steadfastly ignored that weighted feeling that insisted on clinging in his chest, that nagging sense that may have been guilt. The Red really couldn't know if it was--he had never truly felt guilty for anything he had ever done, not before.  
  
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Bass, hanging in a dark corner of his miniscule world, heaved a sigh of relief. He had told himself, again and again, to leave the unconscious blue reploid Zero was carrying alone, to not expend the energy--he was on a limited supply, and once it was gone, he would vanish like he had never been, become nothing more than an empty memory somewhere in the cloudy depths of Zero's mind--but he hadn't kept his will resolved enough. He had just HAD to try...he wadn't to know what this X character was like, who could so easily get Zero to be more sane than he had for years. And so, with a deftness only one who had spent 30-some years living as a memory could have, the black and gold 'bot had taken a peek into X's dreams, and hadn't simply vanished into that blank pit of nonexistance that threatened. Still, he hadn't found out all that much, either...he had wound up telling more than listening. He blamed Zero for never telling X anything.  
  
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X had been having a fairly pleasent dream. Just one of those dreams where the strangest things happen, but nothing seems out of the ordinary, because you think that's the way it's always been. The kind that vanish like morning mist in the sun, leaving a vague feeling that you remember something but you're not sure what.  
  
But then it changed.  
  
The change was subtle at first. Nothing to take notice of. The dream changed its colorscheme, was all--it changed from rainbow-hued to bathed in varying shades of bloody red. In such a dream as this, those type of things aren't noticed.  
  
But then the dream twisted in on itself. All the people had been gone, and this time, X actually noticed they were gone, unlike when a person vanished normally, or changed into another person mid-sentance. That sort of occurence was normal--but now, they had all gone, to be replaced with a creeping feeling. X felt like he was being watched, like someone was perched high up and scrutinizing him from some vantage he couldn't see in the crimson landscape. It changed from a bland canyon to a harsh downtown, red cars sitting in various states of disrepair on the red-black pavement, deep red buildings rearing their heads to scrape at the pale red sky.  
  
"Hello?" he called, but in the nature of dreams, his voice wasn't a real voice--it was one of those confusing things, where you make no sound but still had spoken, and all others can hear it even though there were no words. But that didn't bother him, as in a dream, that kind of thing is normal.  
  
"Hello," replied someone else. This someone had a real voice--and that shocked X. Real voices were not common in dreams, and the presence of one knocked his awareness around for a loop, making him confused. Now that he had heard a real voice in a dream world, he wondered why his own voice had not been real. It wasn't until now that he finally realized he was dreaming.  
  
"Who are you?" he asked. Still, he had no real voice. He supposed he wasn't allowed to have one in this dream. Suddenly, the landscape changed again, to a sandy spit of land somewhere lost in the middle of the ocean. The red had begun to drain out of things, replaced with more normal colors. And now there was another person with him.  
  
He knew immidiately that this wasn't just a dream-person--this someone had his own mind, his own thoughts, independant to X's subconscious. He was an imposing character, with his crimson eyes--there was no black in them at all, just that plain white and glittering slits of red--and the purple markings on his face like permanent tearstreaks, or the stripes on a cheetah's muzzle. His helmet was somewhere between being winged, and being hooded like a cobra--he couldn't quite tell which the orange plates on the sides were intended to be. An tealish crystal was set in the center of his helmet, and the center of his ebony breastplate, the metal shining a bright black, trimmed on the edges of the plates with vibrant, shining gold. He towered over the diminuitive X, but, despite the harsh, unanimated nature of his face, he did not seem unkind. But there was one thing that drew X's gaze again and again immidiately past him.  
  
Wings. Broad, deep indigo-purple wings, each individual feather tipped with silver and streaked with black. They were folded casually, as though their bearer wasn't even aware he had them. He smiled--a strange expression, that didn't look natural on his angular face--and swept the helmet off his head, allowing his black-streaked-purple hair, short-cut and wild, to be wipped up by the wind that howled across the sand.  
  
"Zero's so rude...Never even introduced me..." he mumbled, and his voice, a deep, near-monotone, gravelly sound, rung a bell in X's head. Where had he heard that voice before...?  
  
"I know I've heard your voice before," he said slowly, "But I can't remember where..." The winged one chuckled, a sound that didn't seem to belong with his gruff voice.  
  
"My name is Bass," he said, "and I'm pleased to meet you at last, X." He bowed slightly, and the expressionless of his face--even with the smile, it was still expressionless--made it so the Blue couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. "But that, of course, doesn't explain much. I came here to find out more about you, actually, but I guess I'm not as subtle as I'd like, since I quite clearly blundered the whole dream thing up." X nodded with a slight smile of his own. He didn't know anything about this stranger, and his apparent ineptitude at expressing emotion was certainly very odd, but he knew already that he liked him. Still, his inabillity to manage his own expression was strange...almost as though he weren't a reploid at all, just something posing as one. Bass watched X silently, as though watching his thoughts as they went. Actually, he was.  
  
"Well you're right there, X," the ebony-armored figure said at last. "I'm no reploid. I'm from before the age of reploids...I guess you could say I'm an antique. I'm the last of a generation of robots, the generation that spawned the reploids. The great Bass Forte Wily, the greatest creation of Dr. Albert Wily...before Zero came along and screwed everything up, I was pretty much the boss of things. 'Cept my nemesis, Megaman, your predecessor, was always getting in the way..." He chuckled at the expression X was making. A goggle-eyed expression of stunned amazement.  
  
"You mean...you knew Megaman? And Dr. Light?" the Blue whispered at last. He fell back to sit in the sand, not noticing that it had changed to a grassy hill.  
  
"Yep. But don't start asking me about family, because I didn't come here to talk about that, and I'm not sure if I have the time," as though his statement had been a trigger, Bass's form flickered like a low-quality hologram. "...crap." And then he was vanished, leaving X alone in his own dreamscape. The blue reploid heaved a heavy sigh. Answers had come so close--answers about his family, Zero's past, the past in general--and then slipped away. Where had Bass come from? And where had he met him before?  
  
Suddenly X remembered. The video room, the red tape, and the voice that had suddenly interjected a wry comment in his head--a low, gravelly voice that was almost monotone.  
  
He got the idea that things were even more twisted than he had at first thought...  
  
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She shivered every now and again, a bolt of energized anticipation coursing through her as she walked slowly up the hall towards Sigma's throneroom. Of course, for Aerthin Dorackin V, "slowly" still ate up the length of the hallway at a rapid pace. Her claws occasionaly shrieked against the metal floor when they struck it at an odd angle, but she didn't notice the piercing noises. In one foreclaw, she clutched a tablet of paper as though it were some sort of precious device...or something that might explode if she so much as breathed wrong. And in a way, that was what it was. A bomb that might either save her, or obliterate her, depending on a chance crossbreeze.  
  
The Maverick on guard, a skinny, weaslish thing with beady eyes, tried to say something along the lines of "Sigma isn't receiving any audiences at this time," but he never got the first three words out of his pointed jaws--the reploid dragon swept him out of the way with her free forearm, and smashed open the door. Sigma, who had been sitting on his throne brooding, looked up sharply at the intrusion.  
  
"Aerthin! You are not welcome in here!" he roared, jumping to his feet, clearly ready to throw her out by force. Nope, Sigma wasn't happy.  
  
Aerthin grinned.  
  
"I'll come in if I danged well please," she snarled jovially. "You ain't my boss no more, Siggy!" Sigma's eyes went wide and furious, and he snatched his saber out of its holster, clearly intending to disembowl the dragon for her insubordinate statement. However, she merely grinned broadly at him, a grin that shone with ivory teeth.  
  
"I've beaten you, Sig," she laughed. "Within one hour, you won't have no followers no more. Who knows, within one hour, you may not even exist no more!" She raised the tablet, waving it back and forth. "Crunch numbers and weep, Mr. Clean! I found ol' Aerthin Dorackin III's datalouges that she stashed in an unused computer. Included was the design for an interesting mutation for the Maverick virus that she apparently created, called the 'failsafe.' Why she made it, I have no idea, but I decided to do a few experiments. And would you guess what I found?" She waved the tablet tauntingly again at Sigma, who was stock-still, staring at her in a mix of terror and hate--Sigma really had gone cowardly ever since Zero beat him down in his own throneroom. "Incompatability. Maverick virus plus failsafe virus equals no virus. The two can't exist together--they destroy each other the moment they meet." Sigma's gaze turned to pure fear and surprise.  
  
"What...?" his voice had lost its commanding roar, and now was a pathetic whimper. It made Aerthin all the more glad that she had decided to smack Sigma down once and for all.  
  
"That's right, shineyboy. I've found something that no reploid thought existed--I've found the anti-virus for the Maverick virus, all thanks to one of those dead idiots I was designed from! You're through, Siggy, you and your stupid ideals!" Sigma's eyes narrowed as a measure of steel crept back into his spine.  
  
"Why?" was all he asked. "Why would a Maverick want to eliminate the Maverick virus?" Aerthin snorted, rolling her eyes.  
  
"You really ARE dense, Sig! Don't you get it? I'll put in a term you'll likely understand...the virus has been thinned out, weakened, messed up. It's been copied too many times, for too many reploids. It's like inbreeding. Every copy becomes even weaker and less equipped to survive than the one it was copied from. How many times has the virus from the original Aerthin Dorackin been copied? Five, without any variation, without any new strain. It's become pathetic and inept. But you, Sigma...you're the major carrier. You're nothing but virus. That's why...this anti-virus won't cure you...it'll just kill you." She hissed, grinning evilly. But Sigma didn't give her a chance to gloat.  
  
Aerthin had fallen for the age-old ploy. Sigma had taken the opportunity of her long-winded explenation to steady himself, and set himself for battle. Aerthin's cackling was cut off as a beamsaber was driven straight up through her jaw, shattering the crystal on her head and spraying dark blood everywhere. Her eyes went wide and empty, and yet still she laughed, in a dry, gurgling, broken voice.  
  
"You...can't...win...Sigma..." she whirred. His strike had cleaved her voice synthesizer straight in two, and her voice had become a series of electronic noises strung together to make a sound that was something like words. "I've...already...told...all...my...allies...about...it... And...they're...all...clean... The...failsafe...is...spreading...as...we...speak..." She laughed one final time, spraying blood all over Sigma's chest and face, and her body went limp. Sigma jumped away to avoid being crushed under the mass of dead metal that was Aerthin Dorackin V.  
  
"This can't be happening..." Sigma hissed. How could such a disastor strike? Immidiately, he slammed his hand down on the emergency alert signal that waited calmly in the back of the room, and a siren began to wail.  
  
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Zero was just pulling X out of the recharger when the alarm began shrieking. He looked up, darting his gaze back and forth, as though he could spot the problem from here. All he did spot, however, was Sting rushing swiftly towards him, his pink-red eyes rolling wildly in what might have been either terror or excitement.  
  
"Rush!" the lizard burbled, and Zero grimaced; why hadn't he ever thought to tell Sting to call him Zero? "Rush, quick! You're clean, right? Aerthin already talked to you, right? We gotta run! Quick! Before the Mavs fall on us and stop the whole thing!"  
  
"What the HECK are you talking about?!" Zero shouted, "Aerthin never talked to me! What's going on? What do you mean, clean?" Sting chirped almost mournfully.  
  
"Aerthin found a weird thing made by Dorackin number three! Called it a failsafe! And when she was experimenting, she found out that if the failsafe and the Maverick virus meet each other, they destroy each other! She spread it to all the folk who've been against Sigma, then she went to confront him and try to get him to back down, but he killed her! He's alerted the Mavs! We gotta MOVE!!" With that Sting was gone, rushing away, and Zero grinned.  
  
"Time to go!" he said cheerfully, snatching X up and racing for the Gates room.  
  
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Jabberwock and Sharded Wolf both snarled fiercly as they threw their weight into the huge, blocky device they were pushing, but Manticore merely wore his perpetual amused grin as he helped shove it along. Harpy, too low-stamina to be any use, was scouting ahead through the air, keeping an eye out for trouble. HissnLatch was off on a seperate mission, and Reapa was back at the "base," as they called their place. Four Star, not strong enough to deal with the war machine that they were dragging along and not fast enough to keep up with Harpy, merely stayed alongside, her new beloved weapon in her hands. It was a twin-bladed beamscythe, one neon-rose blade on either end, and she had proved to be quite adept at using it. Partially becuase, as she had admitted, she had long practiced with a staff, using everything from old broom handles to sticks she had whittled straight in her spare time.  
  
Every once in a while, Sharded Wolf would glance across at the graceful, nightsky-patterned centaur curiously. They both had a vendetta against the same reploid, and he wondered if he would have to fight her to be the one to kill the hated X. Suddenly, Harpy wheeled overhead, her wings thrashing the air in an oddly silent manner.  
  
"We're coming up on the transpoint!" she announced. Manticore's grin grew wider.  
  
"Excellent." 


	13. Chapter 13: No Backwards Glance

Bloodrush  
  
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Chapter 13:  
  
No Backwards Glance  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are.  
  
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Author's Notes: Here it is, folks. What you've all been waiting for! This is a bit of a long chapter, 'cuz I had to include all the X-Upgrades as well as the storming of the fortress.  
  
And yes, Zero and X's "team" is comprised of the original Maverick Bosses from Megaman-X 1; Sting Chameleon, Flame Mammoth, Armored Armadillo, Storm Eagle, Spark Mandrill, Launch Octopus, Boomer Kuwanger, and Chill Penguin.  
  
Yay for reviewers, Crystalstorm21 and Iridescent Hope!  
  
Also, I will add an epilogue. Because epilogues are good.  
  
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It finally happened. The Maverick Hunter HeadQuarters had been hovering on the brink for a while now, in its wretched state of disrepair, but an entire wing of the place collapsed without warning, the entire facility fell with it.   
  
Hunters simply began to drift away. In ones and twos they left, often abandoning their armor and weaponry, leaving it behind them, sick and tired of fighting everything from metallic monsters to unstable floors. Humans vanished first. They simply didn't have the stamina, the patience, the strength the reploids did--nor did they have the stomache for the endless disastors which plagued the team. Soon after the humans began vanishing, the less loyal reploids, most of them rookies who had never even seen a serious fight, were leaving as well. And from there the abandoment grew, in a slowly tightening noose.  
  
And finally, the union that had been born to stand against the threat of the Mavericks folded in on itself, choking in its own dust. There was no worldwide cryout, no demand that the defenders return to their posts. There was barely any acknowledgement at all.  
  
There were still Hunters, of course. But they were few and far between, roaming solo for the most part, occasionally in small bands. But they were doomed to adapt to a world that didn't care, a world that had long since resigned itself to death and destruction.  
  
Lucky for them, they were being replaced by a new group.  
  
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Zero found himself endlessly confused by the role he had been shoved into. The ex-Mavericks, renegades without anywhere to turn, had followed him, proclaiming him as an unsaid leader. Zero didn't feel much like a leader. He hadn't been doing any killing since Waltz and the Brothers--X didn't like killing, and for some reason that was important to Zero--and he had begun to grow twitchy for want of spilt blood. In that way, Zero was just as bad as anyone addicted to one of those deadly drugs. Without his fix, he got weird, his hunger for blood obscuring a number of other things. Even though he knew X hated killing, hated to see blood spilled, he knew he would have to get into SOME sort of a scrap--he was going nuts. His thoughts had drifted in uncomfortable directions, once even stirring the phantom Bass enough to interject his stern denial. Zero didn't care whose blood was spilt--even if it was his own. Bass hadn't approved of the thought of his host becoming overly masochistic.  
  
X, on the other hand, appeared to take to his current role--also leader, though Zero held precendence over the Blue--like a duck to water. Everything about him just worked for the job of ordering around a group of half-frightened, half-angry reploids who had very recently been on the "World's Most Wanted" list.  
  
Sting crawled into the small room where Zero had taken up shop. The Red was leaned back in a moth-eaten old chair, his feet propped up on the chipped, three-legged desk before him. He didn't really do anything with the desk, but he liked having it there anyway.   
  
"Sir," the lizard burbled, snapping to a strange sort of attention. Zero rolled his eyes.  
  
"How many times do I have to tell you? My name is Zero, not 'Sir,' and don't do that, it makes you look stupid," he sighed, staring at the ceiling. He felt bored, but that was better than when he felt hungry. Then, no one was safe to get near him but X. The other reploids had already learned not to try and talk to him when he had that predator gleam in his eyes.  
  
"Er, sorry, Zero," Sting chirped, dropping back into his usual forward-slouching stance, halfway between four-legged and two-legged. "Anyway, me and the rest of us have been pondering something...we need a name. I mean we, as a group." Zero looked down at him lazily, his eyes a cloudy color. They kept hinting at changing to a faded blue-gray, replacing the cold, gleaming steel, but they had never quite managed--now they were just the color of fog.  
  
"Eh?" A pinprick of annoyance cut through his lethargy. "And you can't just decide on one yourselves, need me to hold your hand?" Sting rolled his eyes and tossed his head from side to side.  
  
"No, Sir! Er, Zero! But we thought you might want to know...since you're our leader and all..." he chirped, cringing. Zero's annoyance flared up into anger, and he was about three seconds from booting the lizard through the wall when X trotted in. The Blue immidiately assessed the situation, and put himself at a convenient point between the two reploids.  
  
"Now play nice, boys!" he chastised lightly. "So Zero, what thought have you given to the name?" Zero sighed in a defeated sort of manner, his anger gone as soon as it had been, and slumped back again, staring listlessly at the ceiling. DANG did he want to kill something.  
  
"I'm no good with making up names," he said plainly. Sting chirped, and X sighed.  
  
"Well, then, I guess it's my choice...I just figured you should be the one christen us, since you're the general leading us to Sigma's gates and all," the Blue said casually, but he was looking at Zero from the corner of his eye, gauging his reaction. Zero's head shot up immidiately, his eyes sparkling sharply.  
  
"We're going after Sigma?" he asked, and the bored drone was gone entirely from his voice. It had a vague suggestion of a purr in it, but most of that had faded away, just like the steel in his eyes was fading. For some reason, X was at the same time thrilled and worried...but he didn't know what, exactly, made him worried about it.  
  
X feigned surprise so well, Zero was certain he had been planning this.  
  
"No one told you? Since the Hunters went belly-up--" he made something of a face at that--"Sigma'll likely start breathing down our necks at any time." Zero considered silently.  
  
"So we're going to go after Sigma, ten former Mavericks against a whole army with a fortress to back them up." A grin spread across his face. "Sounds like fun."  
  
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"Poll, poll, poll; tally, tally, tally!" Chill Penguin quacked, shaking the box he held. Zero hadn't been able to suggest a name--he really wasn't good at naming things--so instead they were going to have the "team" submit their own ideas. Nine pieces of paper, one from everyone save for Zero, who would simply choose which one they kept. He flightless bird handed the box to the Red, who pawed through the contents before plucking out one at random.  
  
"Neh?" he asked then. "I guess this would be Launch's...you expect me to read this?" He crumpled up the scrawled-on paper, and the octopus humphed.  
  
"Well, I'm not exactly well equipped!" he grumped, waving his tentacles about. Zero ignored him, pulling out another slip.  
  
"Guerillas. How utterly creative, Spark." Spark Mandrill muttered something under his breath, as Zero crushed that paper too, moving on to the third. "Firesword? Uh...no." He went through the next four, not even bothering to read them aloud, simply mashing the paper and tossing it away. Finally he stopped, blinking at one.  
  
"Seraphim?" he looked straight at X, who he knew had written it--none of the rest had handwriting that neat. "Now I'm not proclaiming to be overly religious, but don't you think that might be considered just a TAD blasphemous, and at the least, rediculous?" X just grinned and shrugged, and Zero rolled his eyes and went on.  
  
"Aerthin," he read, looking down at the sloppy-neat handwriting of Sting Chameleon. He blinked, and Sting burbled, rolling his head about and looking away.  
  
"Well, she did start all this...Just thought I may as well try to give her some credit..." he hunched his shoulders and chirped. Zero knew for a certainty that were it not for the overpowering green of his built-on armor, the lizard would be blushing furiously. And the jungle-colored plating did nothing to hide the tears that Sting quickly scrubbed away.  
  
Zero snickered. It had been quite obvious the chameleon had fancied the fifth Dorackin--more than fancied, actually. He certainly hadn't been too busy to slip off somewhere secluded, before the failsafe had been unleashed.  
  
"Well, no reason we couldn't make a martyr of the ol' drakky," Zero mused. Sting smiled slightly before vanishing under his cloaking hologram and rushing off--probably to bawl and moan over his dead lover, just like he had every time he happened to think about her.  
  
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The big old war machine, a haphazard construction made from bits and pieces of old cars, smashed reploids, and other salvaged scrap, while it looked like something from a surrealist's nightmares, worked very well at its job. They had tested it numerous times. The Crusher was an overhyped battering ram, and it could power straight through steel-enforced walls without a pause.  
  
Still, it would take it a while before it could tear through the side wall of Sigma's fortress.  
  
Jabberwock and Harpy had no idea why they might be there--they were simply obeying the command of Manticore. Asking questions wasn't their job. Sharded Wolf and Four Star were both after X, who they thought was still with the Mavericks.  
  
Manticore was smiling as always as he looked at the dark, hulking shape that was Sigma's fortress, but inside he felt ready to burst from anticipation. His "seer" sense screamed at him that he HAD to go there, to strike right into that side wall at exactly the right time. The tension was practically electric in the air.  
  
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X was exhausted. Zero hadn't had any more sleep than him, and yet, unlike the Blue, he was completely cool--still leaning back in his ragged chair, feet up on the desk, eyes as intent as ever, as though it weren't an hour before sunrise.  
  
"You know those capsules y'got your shiny armor upgrades out of?" he asked suddenly. X, blinking his eyes open, nodded sleepily. "I think there are probably more of those, and we should find every last one before we make our move. Have our soldiers in peak condition." X blinked again, rubbed at his eyes, then nodded.  
  
"You're probably--" he paused to yawn--"right. But there's no way I could find them all. Sigma would sniff me out long before then."  
  
"Then we send the rest of the team out at the same time," Zero replied simply. "Each of them had a spot they tended to hang out in, and they could find something if it's there." And with that statement he hopped out of his seat, trotting out, his boots ringing on the cement floor.  
  
Within a few minutes, he had the entire Aerthins assembled. Sting and Chill, having already discovered the treasures hidden away in their places, would be helping to search elsewhere. The group dispersed, each heading towards where they had spent so much time. Except for Storm Eagle, who hung back.  
  
"Zero?" he called then. "I think I know where something may be in the ol' airship...but it would be a bit risky, as the thing is heavily inhabited with troops and drones. There's a storage area that's enclose with spare fuel tanks. If you destroy the tanks, you could crash the ship...and get at that area." Zero nodded.  
  
"Taking all the drones on'd be too risky for one rep..." he murmred. "X, you go with Storm and help him deal with 'em. That way, you can get at any capsule you find without having to dig through the rubble after it's crashed. You're strong enough to carry X, right, Storm?"  
  
"I don't know," the purple-plumed bird replied. He leapt into the air, his wings stroking powerfully, aided with a pair of subtley concealed jet thrusters. X blinked sleepily, not exactly aware of what was going on, and was suddenly hauled into the air when Storm grabbed him by the shoulders. The eagle pumped his mighty wings once, twice, thrice, and he caught into the air currents, lifting easily into the sky. X, now fully awake, was staring wide-eyed at the ground below, holding onto Storm's arms tightly. The eagle looked down at his burden.  
  
"You'll have to be able to attack while in the air," he said, and X nodded. He wasn't really much afraid of heights--it was simply an uncomfortable way to be shoked to full wakefulness. He considered. His twinblade saber wouldn't be much good in the air--it would require Storm to get uncomfortably close to the enemies. With a glance at Zero, he let go with one arm and activated his faithful old X-Buster. The plates whirred and clicked into place soundlessly, and he knew that, however much he practiced with a saber, this would always be his ultimate weapon. Zero didn't seem to care one way or another, so X let the buster remain in place, beginning to charge it, holding down the inner trigger. The buster hummed with increasing volume as it sucked air into its chambers, keeping the generator from overheating, and Storm was off.  
  
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Flame Mammoth walked along the conveyor belts, which pitched bits of old machines into a broad pit of molten metal, gathering it together to be solidified and built into new machines. He hopped down into the liquid flame without a worry, his hide repelling the heat like duck's feathers repelled water. As he clambored about, not noticing the superheated floor and baking air, he glanced up at an oddity in the ceiling. It was nothing more than a different kind of material used to plate that spot, true, but still, anything strange should be investigated. For a moment, Flame considered firing a gob of his sticky oil mixture that was loaded in his weapon, to see if the odd spot in the ceiling could be torched, then shook his head--if it could burn, it would have burned long before. The titan crouched low, setting his massive bulk in the perfect balance required for a jump, and leapt, springing through the air, straight for the ceiling. His metal skull struck the plating with a phenominal, gonglike crash, and he landed with his head ringing like a church bell. But there was not so much as a dent in the ceiling. He rubbed his head, and headed towards the transarea he had set upon his arrival. Zero would want to know about that.  
  
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X shot a pair of drones out of the air, watching as they burst into flames and fell. They were nearing the place Storm had talked about--there was a great antenna, probably a control point for the robotic drones, and below it a pit that led to the fuel storage area. Storm tucked in his wings and flared them once more, stopping just above the ledge, and X charged up his buster. Once it reached its maximum power--the charge it could achieve without overheating itself--he fired. The energy burned furiously against the tanks...but it faded away, leaving a spot on his vision, and there was nothing but a faint scorch mark on the tough metal.  
  
"Fire," Storm said immidiately. X looked up blankly.  
  
"I just did..." he said slowly.  
  
"No, I mean flames, heat," the eagle elaborated. "The metal is nigh indestructable, but if you heat the fuel inside it enough, it will ignite and the pressure will blow the tanks apart from the inside out." X nodded.  
  
"Well, the only person who could do that is Flame Mammoth..." he began, and then Storm, without a word of warning, let go. He landed on the very edge of the metal shelf, fell backwards, and grabbed the ledge with one hand, pulling himself back up.   
  
"What was that about?!" he asked as Storm landed beside him. The Eagle looked out, as though making sure there were no drones about, even though they had triple-checked to make sure the area was cleared, then activated his own weapon. It was designed to resemble a buster, but in truth it created a powerful air current which could be alternated to either make a vacuum or a high-powered fan, blowing things to and fro. Used in tandom with his egg-bombs, a rather unorthodox but still usefull attack, he could usually doom opponents to a sure death.   
  
"I'm curious as to something, X," the bird said finally. "I'd had a lot of time on my hands, just like the most of us, so I scoured as many old files as I could. I didn't find much, but I did find a record about how there had been a few old robot designs where their weapon systems could repgrogram and upgrade themselves by copying the structure of other systems. And I figured...since you're sort of an old design...err, no offense in that. Anyway, who knows?" X considered this, then shrugged.  
  
"Well, if I'm supposed to suddenly know how one would do this, you're out of luck," he responded. Storm Eagle folded his wings tightly back, and began studying his own weapon. He ran his other hand across it, catching his fingers in the main hatch, sliding it open. Delicately shuffling through the wiring, careful not to tug hard on anything, he plucked out a small chip--the main weapon chip, that controlled the reaction to triggure pressure, energy levels, and all the other technological stuff, that most reploids didn't even know existed. X blinked at the bird dubiously.  
  
"I think you already know what this is," the eagle said, holding out the chip. "Just take it and see what happens. I expect you to give it back though. My gun's not much good without it." His snicker seemed drastically out of place. Storm dropped the chip into X's hand, and the blue reploid held it up, just looking at it. There was a slight click, and he blinked again, trying to register what just happened. Just a new tidbit...he handed the chip slowly back to Storm, who replaced it carefully. X lifted his own buster, trying to focus on that "new tidbit" which had popped into his head. It was confusing for a few minutes...then something clicked into place. A slight shiver went through him, as a rush of energy swept through him. A glance down showed something very odd--his armor had changed from its tones of blue to a purplish color. How the metal had managed that, he didn't know, but he was preoccupied at the moment.  
  
His buster hummed raggedly for a moment, and then unleashed its newest trick. The sideways cyclone was not just pure air--thin, spiraling blades of pale purple energy laced through it, making it deadly. It struck the wall, and a harsh grating noise filled the air as it tore into the base of the antenna tower. The pair could only watch as the tower, half its foundations turned into shrapnel from the strike, swayed and toppled in a mess of screaming, warped metal beams.  
  
"...well." X said finally. Storm just nodded, wide-eyed.  
  
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Armored Armadillo rolled himself up, bouncing along the walls, building up momentum to the point where he could roll along the ceiling for extended periods of time. He plowed through a number of objects, bounced across gaps, and struck dizzily off walls, until he finally reached the point where not even his wild bouncing could carry him across the maddeningly broad chasm. This was the fun part, and also where he was inspecting something. He hopped onto the railcart, kicked away the brake that held it in place, and shot off at a blazing speed. With Armored Armadillo, speed was key. He loved the rush he got whenever he was going fast, the adrenaline when you came seconds away from a fatal collision, only to veer away at the very last moment. It was what he lived for.  
  
The cart jumped and shook, and then it was out in the open air. Timing it with precision that came from knowing this place like the back of his hand, he jumped, sailing solo through the air, snatching his short claws into the wall that loomed up before him, rushing up and down along it, searching. He found a high ledge, scrabbled up, and began rapping against the door there. Locked. Popping open the sheet of armor on his head, his cannon lifted up immidiately below it, and fired a few blasts. The shots made not a scratch on the metal of the door. He rolled into a ball, revved himself in place until rockdust was spewing all about him, and shot forward.  
  
The crack echoed like cannonfire across the chasm, and Armored was flying backwards through the air. He had bounced right off the door, and was now flying away.  
  
"Need a keeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!!!!!!" he squealed, just before splatting against the back wall of the canyon. He immidiately latched his claws into the rough surface, allowing himself to slide downwards slowly, until he swung into the opening. A new minecart was sitting in place, waiting patiently, brakes on. A mechanic crane would place a new minecart there whenever the last one was destroyed--which, because of the lack of tracks over the canyon, was every time someone used it. That chasm led a LONG way down.  
  
"Now what?" he chittered to himself, staring upwards across the chasm, towards where the locked door had been.  
  
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Zero kicked his worn desk in frustration. One of the remaining three legs broke from the abuse, and it toppled awkwardly, falling ponderously onto its side. He kicked it again for falling down.  
  
X chose that moment to walk in, and blinked at Flame Mammoth, who was standing stock-still, clearly nervous. Storm hung back in the hall.  
  
"Hey, Z?" X asked then. Zero's gaze snapped up from the trashed desk immidiately, for a moment every bit as feral as a wild animal's. For a moment, X thought the reploid would attack him for shortening his name. Then he shook his head, stretched, and rubbed a hand across his face.  
  
"Some sleep would be very welcome..." he muttered, then scrubbed at his face again, drawing his hand back through his hair, which was starting to look a bit scraggled. Hair like that wouldn't maintain itself, after all, and Zero had been a bit busy. "Yeah? What now? More trouble? Flame seems to need me to hold his hand or something..." The Red was wearing ragged around the edges. He really hated being a leader.  
  
"Actually, I've got a bit of good news. First, I know exactly how to get to the capsule on the airship. Second, Storm remembered an interesting thing." Zero just looked at him, waiting for him to explain. "Have you ever heard of a WDS? That stands for Weapon Duplication System. It's a special kind of system that's designed to be able to duplicate and incorporate data from other systems." Zero's stare did not change.  
  
"Your point being...?" he muttered.  
  
"It was used back in the old days. The schematics for it were lost sometime during the Cataclysm. But, of course, I was built before the Cataclysm, and by the inventor of the WDS." He switched to his new secondary weapon, feeling the same tingling rush of energy as his weapon changed to a different kind of power, his armor somehow shifting the way it reflected light in order to change from blue to purple. Zero peered intently at him.  
  
"So if you get your hands on the data for a weapon system, you can copy it?" he asked. X nodded.  
  
"To a certain extent." Zero grinned broadly.  
  
"Well! That's good news," he laughed. "Once the rest of the team comes back, I'm sure I can convince them to let you borrow their weapon chips for a few minutes." X nodded.  
  
"And right now, I need fire," he said, looking straight at Flame Mammoth, who shrugged helplessly.  
  
"I have no idea how to get a weapon chip out, and I don't want to wreck my weapon," he said, his low voice rumbling. Storm strode forward.  
  
"I know how!"  
  
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X was facing those danged fuel tanks again, but this time he had the Fire Wave--he had named it that after seeing the way it worked, creating a solid stream of fire that splashed across the ground like liquid orange heat. His armor was a bright, livid red, and it reflected oddly into his green eyes as the sun struck it. He raised his buster.  
  
"Better get back, Storm," he warned. "These tanks will blow big-time." He pressed the switch, and the buster's firesparker--a small electrical device encompassing the entire nozzle--sprang to life. When the flammable energy-liquid hybrid that powered the weapon rushed through, it burst into a furious stream of heat and flame, pouring across the tanks. The metal glowed red, and started to swell. X, clicking off the weapon, jumped away. The tanks ruptured, throwing flame and shrapnel everywhere, the shockwave of the explosion throwing X against the wall roughly. When he turned around, a large portion of the opening to the storage area had been blown clear, and the air whistling upwards past him told him the airship was falling, falling fast. Storm gave a wild hoot of laughter, and X jumped across to the ledge once more, rushing along the scorched floor to reach the very back. A capsule stood there patiently.  
  
"Hello, X. I made an upgrade for your helmet, which will enable you to smash specific kinds of materials," the hologram of the old man stated. X stepped into the capsule as he was instructed, the now-familiar encasement of white energy hiding him from view. Within a moment, he had a new helmet in place--a gleaming, slightly showy piece. He leapt out from the base, glanced backwards, and was rushing out to where Storm waited.  
  
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After learning what X's new helmet was supposed to do, Flame Mammoth became suddenly certain that that was how the strange patch of ceiling in the metalworks was to be broken through. He and X were off, the elephant simply carrying the smaller reploid, who could not keep up with his long strides.  
  
X was more than midly uncomfortable in the metalworks. Sweat rolled off him by the gallon, and he found himself beginning to pant like a dog as his system urgently tried to keep its inner workings at a more comfortable temperature. Still, he wasn't in any actual danger--just extremely miserable.  
  
"Just hurry this up," he panted, and Flame, conscious of how most other reploids couldn't take the heat like he could, covered the space within the metalworks in great leaps and bounds, the floor shaking mightily every time he came down. Finally, he pointed upwards to a strange spot in the ceiling.  
  
"There!" he said, excitement plain in his rolling voice. X doubted he could make a jump to it from just beneath, and while there was a raised conveyor platform to one side which he might be able to just make it from, he would rather not.  
  
"Stand under it," he ordered Flame, who obeyed immidiately. X smiled, but it was a wan expression--the heat was making him sick, rolling in vicious, rippling waves from the molten metal to the right. X sprang up from his place on Flame's round shoulder, his helmet connecting solidly with the ceiling...and breaking a layer of it into countless bits and pieces, throwing shards everywhere. He rammed the ceiling again and again, until finally he had knocked open a passage big enough for him to climb up through. He felt dizzy in addition to sick, now--repeatedly banging your head off of a surface, even one that breaks as you do so, can do that to you. Still, he felt like it was worth it as he saw the dimly glowing capsule illuminating the otherwise pitch-black room.   
  
"Hello, X," the hologram greeted, same as always. "I have created an upgrade for your buster. With it you will be able to charge to a third power level, as well as charge aquired weapons." Clearly, Light had expected him to have found out by now that he was able to copy weapons. Heh.  
  
He stepped onto the platform, and received his gleaming new weapon. He wanted sorely to try it out, but he thought he may start staggering if he remained in this heat any longer, so he dropped himself back down through the floor.   
  
"Let's get outta this place!" he panted.  
  
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Armored Armadillo was chittering wildly. Storm had rather surprised him when, the moment he had arrived, the bird demanded that he hand over his weapon system's chip for a while. It wasn't until AFTER the overglorified parrot made sure he got his way that he told him WHY he was doing this, and then Armored didn't mind at all. He just wished the dang canary wouldn't be so BOSSY!  
  
"Anyway, X, I suspect the door will only open for you," he said then, and X blinked. One moment the stout reploid had been complaining about how terribly bossy Storm was, the next he started rambling about some door?  
  
"Wait, what? What door? Where did this come from?" the Blue asked, thoroughly confused. Armored blinked, shook his head.  
  
"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about that!" A first glance at Armored would not imply any sort of speed. He was short-legged, with a scrunched build and heavy armor, seemingly made to be a tank on paws. But the little reploid was in fact a speed-demon, who talked a million miles a minute and could move like it too. X had to go back and sort through everything the fellow said twice, just to understand what he was saying.  
  
"I see..." X said then. He nodded. That door must lead to another capsule. "Take me to it!"  
  
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While Armored always loved the minecart rides, X did not so much. He didn't scream--he wasn't quite THAT terrified of roller coasters--but he dug his fingers into the rim of the cart, keeping himself flat against it, until Armored squealed,  
  
"NOW!!!"  
  
Then, X jumped, and found himself suddenly in the air without any support at all. That state only lasted a second, and the next he smacked against a wall, Armored striking it next to him. The armadillo clamboured easily up the surface, his short claws catching in all the little cracks and faults of the rock, but X had a little more difficulty--finally, he resorted to hopping up the wall by kicking off of it with his feet, holding himself close with his hands, until he got the ledge. He climbed up, and Armored grinned at him.  
  
"I love that ride!" he squeaked, then pointed back at the door. "There it is." X walked back, and before he even got up to it, the inner workings of the door hissed and groaned as they pulled the metal slab up and into a cubby in the ceiling. He stepped through, and there was the capsule.   
  
'The final capsule,' he thought. He wasn't sure how he knew it was the last one, but he did. There were no more after this. The capsule came to life as he approached.  
  
"Hello, X," said the hologram, but this time the old man wasn't dressed in a lab coat. Rather, he was wearing a slightly rediculous blackbelt-style outfit, complete with headband and lack of shoes. X couldn't help but snicker at the ensamble. "It seems you have collected all the other upgrades, as this one will only activated once they are all retrieved. This is just something I did in the side, and I think it should be helpful for you--I call it the Hadouken." The old man laughed at that. "If you are at the optimum energy level, it can create a mesh of mainsystem energy and weapon system energy, which results in a deadly blast which will destroy anything that uses a generator system to function." X blinked at this, then stepped slowly into the capsule.  
  
There was no apparent change...but he definately wanted to try this new weapon out. Stepping out of the small room, he walked up beside Armored.  
  
"Let's see what this does..." he said, activating his buster and aiming it at some point far off in the sky. He tried to think of how one would activate this deadly weapon...and then there was a dry-sounding click, followed immidiately by a dull whir. He blinked. Wasn't it going to work?  
  
Then came the rush. It actually made him feel giddy--a surge of power which coursed through him, like the tingling, electric feel when he changed weapons, amplified by a hundred. He almost giggled from it, the raw power that flooded through his systems. And then it was gone, siphoned out to become the attack--an attack which came, not from his buster as he had expected, but straight from him, the energy transferring itself out and collecting into a blinding orb that hovered there, waiting. The idea of what to do simply popped into X's head, and he deactivated his buster. Then he held both hands out before him, and knocked the energy away like a ball. It flew out into the open air, a sphere of pure destruction, until finally it reached the limit of its range, and burst, a nova of bright light that slowly faded, leaving an imprint on X's eyes. Finally, Armored made a slight squeaking sound.  
  
"Well...that's handy!" he chittered. X just looked at him. Handy...but dangerous. The rush the power brought with it could be considered akin to one of the many deadly drugs humans might take to get high--if he let himself fall into using it too much, he might become addicted to the giddy feel as the power coursed through him. He shook his head.  
  
"Let's go. I've collected all the capsules now...I've just got the get the rest of the weapons, and then we can strike."  
  
_________________  
  
Manticore felt muddy. His mind, his body, everything about him felt thick and dark and unclear. All except for the seer's sense. It was everything. It was clear. It was what he lived to obey. Without that sense, he would be nothing, just some disfigured creature made of metal and wires, crawling along the streets like a crayfish crawls through the silt in a stream. But with it...he had purpose, he had strength, he had something that he knew he should be fighting for.  
  
Down in his mind, Manticore was a being of indecision, of fear, and of self-loathing. Deep down, under the facade of eternal amusement--the facade he had born so long, he no longer knew it was fake--he was a pathetic thing, which couldn't help but hate itself, but was not strong-willed enough to do anything about it. He had been that, once, long ago. He had come into the world that way, a beast which despised and feared itself more than any of those around it had--but his fear made him certain that everyone hated him. And then the seer sight had bestowed itself upon him. Maybe it was simply a psychosis, a malfunction in the way his mind was ordered, but it had saved him. It had given him what he needed to escape the self-doubt, to ignore the fear, to lay to rest the hatred. But now, it seemed, the sense was demanding its payment--it had consumed him wholly, leaving a shell which was obsessed and confused.  
  
But Manticore didn't know that. The only thing Manticore knew was that he had to strike, and soon. The clock was ticking down. Everything was ready. Soon...soon...soon...  
  
_________________  
  
It had begun.  
  
Sigma knew it had begun even before the alarm began wailing, even before the screen on the side wall flickered to life, showing the security views of the attack. There were only ten of them. They were renegades. They were nothing.  
  
Then why was he shaking?  
  
_________________  
  
They had been devided into groups of two. Storm and Sting, Flame and Chill, Spark and Armored, Boomer and Launch. And X and Zero.  
  
The pair were like devil winds--they were barely seen, plowing through the numerous minor enemies, stopping only momentarily to defeat any actual Mavericks they encountered. X was using mostly his buster, now--with his new charge level, and his array of weapons, it was simply more practical. Zero covered the swordplay, his saber a neon lightningbolt.  
  
To X, everything blurred together. The enemies, the landscape, the energy being flung back and forth--it was all one thing, and he was winning against it all. He and Zero moved in perfect synch. They complemented each other's attacks perfectly, forming almost a single entity in two parts, an entity that brought death. In the back of Zero's mind, Bass watched in stunned awe as these, the two perfect warriors, moved inexhorably closer to Sigma. They wore through the endless lines of enemies, and nothing could ever stop them.   
  
_________________  
  
Sting dashed along the roof, destroying the turrets, slinging himself along, using his cloak to take out gunners before they knew he was there. Storm raked the base from the air--he would drag a Maverick into the sky with his cyclonic weapon, then pelt them with his strange egg-bombs, which shattered into kamikaze mini-drones which flew madly about until they ran into something.  
  
But Sting and Storm were not one entity fighting in two places, and that was what caused the disastor. Sting wasn't fast enough, or maybe Storm wasn't. They would never know which it was that had not responded the other's actions quickly enough. The turret whirrled on its base and fired at point-blank range. Storm was plucked from the air by the powerfull shot, and he fell, his frame bowed unnaturally, wings shattered. He was dead long before he struck the earth, synthetic feathers drifting as though to mark his passing through the air. Sting did not have time to exclaim, when a Bee Blade descended on him, its gattling guns roaring.  
  
The lizard put up a fair fight. He dodged the gattler, cloaking himself, dashing up beside it, and striking with his metallic tongue, whipping it, leaving a sparking gouge in the metal. But the Blader swung itself straight down onto him, sacrificing itself, and crushed the chameleon into the ceiling, shoving his mangled form through the layers of metal and into the hall below, a warped mess of green metal, spraying dark crimson across the rubble that formed his tomb.  
  
_________________  
  
Armored rolled wildly, plowing through anything that got in his way. Spark was weaving his own path of destruction, his electrical grip destroying everything it touched, his fists pummeling enemies into scrap.   
  
Then a serpent Maverick strolled languidly down the hall. Her eyes were flat, her movements liquid, and her intent deadly. She flung herself over the raging ball of death that was Armored Armadillo, and stung him from behind with her hidden weapon--a whip which could lock itself into a staff. Spark fell upon her, but all his fists connected with was the wall as she moved smoothely away, ignoring him. Armored, fuming, fired his cannon at her--she sidestepped this attack as well, then her whip-staff struck again. It struck straight into the barrel of his cannon, and the next shot backfired. Suddenly, Armored Armadillo was no longer armored--the weapon system backfire had blown the plates clear off of him, leaving him exposed. He tried frantically to curl himself up and start rolling, but the whip lashed across his neck, severing it halfway through, and he toppled backwards, staring at a world which was sprayed bright red as his lifeblood fountained away from him, then faded to a final black.  
  
She turned to Spark, and the battle may have seemed almost comical, were it not for its ultimate, deadly intent. He swung like a madman, trying desperately to hit her, and she moved with a calm, practiced grace, never once coming close to being hit. And every time, her whip flicked out, striking another bright red line through his armor. Finally, with a cold precision, the whip was locked into a staff, and stabbed straight through the ape's head. Spark realed, all sense gone, all awareness gone, and in one final act, snatched her, crushing her in a grip of death, and a burst of energy raced through the serpent. She screeched--the only sound she had made the entire time--and her blank eyes rolled back. She would never awake, as her body was crushed under the dead weight of Spark Mandrill as he fell atop her.  
  
_________________  
  
One by one the others fell, mowed under by the endless forces, and through it all X and Zero, unaware of that their team was meeting its end, continued on, twin wraiths whispering doom for all those that stood before them.  
  
They came to the final stretch of hallway, and then all heck broke loose.  
  
_________________  
  
"NOW!" Manticore roared. The war machine plowed forward. It struck the wall once, twice, thrice, and the metal buckled, warped, groaned and screamed as it was forced inwards, until finally it caved inwards, filling a section of the hall with shrapnel.  
  
_________________  
  
X was suddenly aware that there was a brand new wall seperating him and Zero. Without even pausing to think, he began to claw through it, destroying bits with his buster, tearing away other chunks, working his way through.  
  
_________________  
  
Zero kept running for a moment, until he ran straight into one of the new invaders. Four Star Centaur, an airhead's grin plastered on her face, swung her twinscythe about, and had the Red not leapt away, he might have lost an arm--or his head. But as he leapt backwards, he met with another new obstacle. Behind him hulked a great, ash-colored wolf reploid, maroon eyes narrow and filled with battlelust. He swung his saber in a wide arc, aimed to carve into the wolf's chest, but his blow was intercepted as the wolf slashed its huge claws up his arm. His wrist went limp as his blood sprayed out in a tall plume, dropping the saber hilt as he fell back. The wolf stepped forward, crushing the hilt of Zero's still-active saber under his foot--the small explosion that resulted scorched away the fur of the wolf's paw, leaving the metal sheeting exposed, bowed inwards from the force, but he did not seem to notice. His eyes were locked with Zero's. He raised his paw upwards, prepared to kill the smaller reploid in a single strike, but Zero rolled backwards--right under Four Star. The wolf's huge paw came down on the centaur, and her entire upper body was torn into ragged shreds of metal--a strange shriek accompanied the waterfall of crimson that spilled from her mangled torso. Zero turned about swiftly, ready with a kick that would hopefully stun the great wolf, when something grabbed him from behind. Four Star, dead but stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it, wrapped her shattered arms around him, holding him for the moment that Sharded Wolf needed.  
  
Zero's eyes went wide without him even being aware of it when three great spearhead claws punched straight through his chest, emerging red-stained from his back. The wolf grinned at Zero's blankly shocked expression, as Zero tried to figure out what had happened--he didn't seem able to comprehend that he had been run through.  
  
Then X came up, howling like a banshee, launching himself onto the wolf's back. Snatching his twinblade saber, his precious gift from Zero, from its holster, he plunged one of the neon blades down between the wolf's shoulderblades. Wolf's victorious laugh turned into a strangled gurgle. A denial formed in his throat, but came out in a bubbling stream of dark, hot liquid that drooled down across the ground, and he fell back, wrenching his claws free of Zero in the process. The Red staggered a few steps, then sunk slowly to his knees. X left the saber where it was, forgetting it.  
  
"Zero!" X cried, collapsing to a crouch beside his partner--his friend. The blonde reploid looked slowly up at him. His eyes were the blue of a winter sky, high and thin but still there. He managed a vague smile.  
  
"Hey," he whispered, then turned his head to spit out the blood that tried to fill his mouth. "S-sorry..." slowly, he fell. X caught him, held him tight, refused to let go.  
  
"You'll be okay," he whispered hoarsely. Zero shook his head, barely perceptable, and hot tears clouded X's vision. "You have to be okay!"  
  
"Hey, X? Promise me something..." the blonde whispered.   
  
"Anything," X replied. Zero's functioning hand gripped the Blue's arm tightly.  
  
"Y'know that red tape...? I wan't--" he paused in a fit of coughing, spattering blood all over X's armor--"I wan't you t'watch it..."  
  
"Sure, Zero," the Blue replied. Zero smiled again.  
  
"Th-thankssssss..." the Red's last word trailed off in an exhaled hiss, fading with his final breath. X, stricken, simply cradled Zero's empty shell of a body against him and sobbed.  
  
_________________  
  
Bass didn't know how he fled the dying Zero's mind. He was too busy wailing, his voice, normally so low and gravelly, a broken, high-pitched noise. He fled to the only other person he had ever spoken to--he fled to X. He hid, hid himself as deep in the dark as he could, curled in on himself, cried to himself.  
  
'I hated him I hated him but I couldn't hate him he was my brother how could I hate him so bad he was my brother even if he was messed up I was wrong I shouldn't have hated him and now he's dead and he thought I hated him and he's gone...'   
  
_________________  
  
Manticore realized he was dead the moment the war machine had torn through the wall. His seer sense, his precious seer sense, deserted him the moment it happened, and he was left exposed to himself. And he died.  
  
His body was still moving, but he knew he was dead. He was a zombie, a creature that belonged in a grave but refuses to lay still. And Manticore decided to fix the fact that he was dead alive--his own claws were more than powerful enough to crush his neck, and then he was fittingly dead, just like his mind had been.  
  
Manticore wondered suddenly, in the single, heavy moment before his pincers closed, what the seer sense had been, where it had come from. He thought he heard someone begin to laugh.  
  
Then the scream of tortured metal drove out all other sounds.  
  
_________________  
  
Harpy and Jabberwock were caught in the fire from roof-turrets and seperated. Jabberwock didn't know where Harpy was, but he had seen what Manticore had done--had seen his leader suddenly go mad, tearing himself apart, his smile becoming a twisted, sick thing. And Jabberwock, his natural cowardice emerging, fled the scene, rushing as far as he could. He had no idea where he was running too, but he had to get away from there. With Manticore dead, he had no reason to obey the monster's orders, now had he?  
  
_________________  
  
Harpy, too, saw Manticore die, but she saw it differently. She saw it not as a half-mad leader finally losing his last marbles, but rather as a horrible sign--the seer sense didn't like what had happened. Manticore had read it all wrong. And so he had to die. Harpy was just thinking that when the turret's blast caught her, and sent her world rushing downwards in a tunnel of fiery black.  
  
_________________  
  
X watched the door slide open with cold indifference. Behind that door waited Sigma. Sigma, who was to blame for it all. Sigma, who was the one who would pay for all these crimes. For Zero's death.  
  
In the back of his mind, he heard Bass's inarticulate wailing. Tears streamed down his own face, and yet he kept his expression steady. He had to face Sigma, and beat him.  
  
The Maverick leader stared at the diminutive reploid which stalked slowly into his room with a mixture of horror and awe. X's eyes were green balefire, his showy armor gleaming in the thin light that barely managed to illuminate the room.  
  
"Sigma, you die today," was all he said. He held his hands up before him.  
  
To X, the giddy rush of power brought on by the Hadouken seemed sickly, a thin replacement for true joy. It was nothing more than a sham of well-feeling, a pitiful attempt. And then the power was in its orb, waiting patiently for its master to send it on its deadly course.  
  
And send it he did.  
  
Perhaps other adventurors would find the battle anti-climactic. Perhaps someone else, who had not been through what X had been through, would have desired an honorable fight to the finish. But to X, no fate was more fitting for Sigma than to be obliterated in a single strike, to never get the chance to stand before a TRUE warrior, one who had seen what happened when wars occured. His best friend had been taken from him. His best friend had been mad, a killer, addicted to blood, unpredictable and cruel--and still he had been his best friend. Maybe more. Something X couldn't comprehend. But now he was gone. And for that, Sigma died.  
  
_________________  
  
X ran back through the collapsing halls as quickly as he could. He ran into things, tripped over things--he could hardly see, his vision clouded with tears. But finally he found that room, the room where Zero had showed him all those videos. He climbed up the shelf, retreived that precious, red-cased tape. It truly was precious. It was more important than anything else. He had promised Zero...promised Zero that he would watch it.  
  
Then, X fled the crumbling building, as it collapsed inwards on itself, burying everything that remained of the Mavericks under a mountain of rubble. He ran, with no backwards glance. 


	14. Epilogue: Tears

Bloodrush  
  
______________  
  
Epilogue:  
  
Tears  
  
______________  
  
Disclaimer: Megaman-X is not mine. My original characters are. Also, the song "Fast Changes" by Seal (the song Bass is singing) is also not mine.  
  
______________  
  
Author's Notes: I hope you all enjoyed the ride. Please wait until the fic comes to a complete stop to disengage.  
  
Yay for reviewers Iridescent Hope and Crystalstorm21 once more! Hehehe. I SHOCKED PEOPLES.  
  
______________  
  
Reapa picked slowly through the rubble of Sigma's fortress, careful not to harm herself on any of the jagged edges of metal. She was determined to gather as many salvagable reploid parts as she could.  
  
The empty-eyed girl stopped when she uncovered the corpse of Sharded Wolf. His body had been crushed badly, but most of his head was still intact. With the jagged metal blade she had found, she cut through fur and armor and internal wiring, until she found it. His control chip, nestled safely deep inside and still undamaged. She snatched it out and wrapped it carefully in a strip of cloth, stowing it in her satchel.  
  
As she dug, she found something far better than the mashed remains of Wolf.  
  
She stared silently on the miraculously untouched body of Zero. The ceiling had fallen at the perfect angle to form a small, open chamber around it, protecting the shell of metal from futhur damage. And as she stared at him, something came to replace the emptiness in her eyes, as the grip of amnesia lost its hold on her, and she remembered who--and what--she was.  
  
And what filled those hollow eyes was evil.  
  
______________  
  
It had taken X a long time to find a television. Even longer to find a functioning VCR. He didn't know how long--he hadn't bothered to keep any measure of time. What was important was that he now had them. And he could keep his promise to Zero.  
  
In the back of his head, Bass was singing something. Ever since he had broken his voice wailing, he had lost his monotone--as though that had at least cracked the mask that he had been trapped behind. For a moment, X simply listened to the words.  
  
'Well here we are,  
  
In different worlds,  
  
I can hear ya cryin', sayin',  
  
"No way out,"  
  
Or so it seems...'  
  
He didn't recognize the soft, melancholy tune. Zero had never sung sad songs. X pushed the tape into the VCR, and Bass went silent.  
  
Static fuzzed across the screen for a moment. Then it flickered away, to show a dim image of a cluttered little room. And a voice, Zero's voice, began to speak.  
  
"See? I told you I could fix it. I can do ANYTHING!" Zero laughed. It was a Zero from another time, a Zero before everything bad had happened. "Hey! It's recording already! Smile for the camera, Bass!" The picture swung around to come face-to-face with the blank-eyed robot.  
  
"Get it out of my face before I removed YOUR face," Bass said tonelessly. Zero snickered, and a brief struggle over the camera ensued. Zero apparently won, as he began laughing again.  
  
"I am the king of the camera!" he crowed.  
  
"Just don't drag it all over the lab..." Bass muttered from offscreen.  
  
X watched the entire thing in silence, unaware of the tears running down his face. He even managed to smile at some of Zero's stupid jokes and pranks. In his head, Bass began whispering softly, miserably.  
  
'I don't know what happened that day...he just came up to my room...he was acting funny...I asked him what was going on...he said Wily was dead...that he had killed him...that Wily wasn't any good anymore...no humans were any good anymore...I didn't know what to say...I was shocked...he sounded nothing like the old Zero...then he killed me...but I didn't really die...I don't know how...and that's when I named him Bloodrush...'  
  
The movie ended, and X burst into helpless tears. 


End file.
